Gibbous
by LeakySneakyOprichniki
Summary: "This sort of infliction wasn't controlled by the light of the moon. This condition was subject to the waxing and waning of his consciousness. " Attempting something different. Rated M for probable future content.
1. Chapter 1

**My first attempt at an AU with this pairing. If the first chapter goes well, I think I'll continue. I don't know how long this will be.**

* * *

><p>I.<p>

Multiple data screens directly ahead glinted over the front of foggy glasses. They were removed and cleaned with the end of an over worn lab coat. Cold silence of the humming facility was filled with an inquisitive mumble, and then left to its own again. A pair of dark eyes squinted after the glasses were set in place over the bridge of the narrow nose between them.

He was well aware his time would come to an end, but his experiments would not. Could not. The data screen was filled to the outer edges in various indexes of his concepts and musings. Too much to be done. Too much to resist. He kept main creations in mind, but he also planned to initiate as many of his cataloged experiments as he could. Starting, with data he was never able to put to good use.

Pale fingers pecked over a dusty keyboard.

**RED XIII |**

The physical DNA of the creature was filed somewhere. What an insatiable curiosity. Shame this would have to wait until a proper test subject came along.

II.

Cid snorted cigarette smoke from his nostrils and glared ahead. The sun was too bright in his face; stinging his eyes. He was getting tired of waiting for Shera outside the corner store. His legs hurt like hell. All of him hurt like hell. _Still._ The meds the doc prescribed only served to make him loopy. Shera gave up on getting him to take them a long while ago.

"What the hell are they all goin' on about now?" The distorted rumble of chitter-chatter over Meteor's after events was just being to die down, only for some other nonsense to pop up again. Cid was actually hoping they'd be speaking well of him when he returned home. He saved the world goddammit! But nooo, they were all three feet down in ShinRa's abandoned asscrack. Exposed secrets. A more accurate report of the cause of Meteor. Blah blah blah. No one here had anything better to do now that they weren't scared shitless. It was slowly going back to the same-old-same-old.

"I'm not exactly sure." Shera answered him upon exiting Rocket Town's corner store. She adjusted the few bags under her arms and waited for Cid to find his footing before following him back down the block. "Some people are reporting accounts of suspicious activity." Shera watched her housemate's slight limp. She hoped he was getting better. Cid was pretty beat up when he returned home half a year ago.

"Suspicious activity? Now ain't that vague?" Cid plucked a cigarette butt from his mouth, smothered, and left it in a sand column they passed by. "S'far as I know, everyone in this town is pretty damn suspicious."

"I was talking to the cashier, and they mentioned that a few people have seen someone, or something stalking the town at night. Mrs .Debra's cat went missing...I think." Shera tried to accurately recall the gossip—information she was given.

"Probably a coyote, er' somethin'. Snatched up my mamma's dog once." Cid pulled open the front picket gate to their home. It groaned with protest, wheezed, and snapped shut behind them.

"I'm no stranger to coyotes either. Could be a bobcat. The mountains aren't too far from here." Shera agreed with Cid's hypothesis, took the mail from the box, and unlocked the door inside. Without using her hands, she chucked off her boots, and placed the paper bags in her arms on the kitchen table. "Are you feeling alright, Captain?" Shera placed her hands on her hips. She looked Cid up and down after he clicked on the dingy kitchen light.

"Yah? M' fine. I ain't takin' any more medicine, so don't even think about it." He grumbled after removing his own boots and tossing them off to the side of the mat.

"Are you sure?" She nibbled on her knuckle in deep thought. Shera had figured Cid would recover by now, and as much as he liked to hide it, she knew he was still in occasional pain.

"Didn't I say I was fine?!" Cid barked, but took a moment to retract his tone. He had to watch how he snapped at Shera. He had promised he would. "I mean…I'm fine, Shera. Alright?"

"If you're sure…" She nibbled the inside of her cheek, and began to put food away. Cid actually limped over to help her.

III.

"I saw it! Saw it with my own two eyes!" A neighbor's hysterical voice carried across the street. The old widow was out in her robe and slippers; clutching her dog, and clearly, quite shaken up on the ground. Others who were up early trotted over in their pajamas to see what her fuss was about. Some were crouched down at her side and fanning her face with their hands.

Shera rubbed her eyes and placed down the cup of tea she'd just brewed on the counter. She'd been glancing at the development through the window. Cid was half asleep at the kitchen table; legs crossed over the patchy, green floor rug while he drifted in and out of snoring.

"I'll be right back, Captain!" Shera stuffed on her boots near the door and trotted out after Cid had grunted a reply. It was probably best that she investigated. Besides, she was curious and concerned.

The morning air was thick and cool with moisture. She straightened her glasses over her nose and paused to listen with the rest of the small crowd that had gathered. Light was just beginning to rise from behind the empty launch pad; illuminating the sides of houses and dew drops in scruffy lawns.

"What did you see?!" Someone shoved forward and asked. "Did they rob you?!"

"I saw it!_ It_!" It was all the little woman could say, because she had no clear idea what 'it' was. What was clear, though, was that it was _far_ from human. "It came around my house, attacked, and tried to kill me!"

Straggling away from the group, Shera quietly followed some other nosy on lookers away from the verbal account, and to the other side of her neighbor's village home. She held a hand over her sharp gasp upon examining the evidence from afar. The side of the older woman's home was marred with deep gashes. Some of the wood was splintered, or completely ripped off and scattered in a mess across the dampened grass. Unnaturally large prints coupled with splatters of blood in the softened ground lead off to nowhere in particular. How odd…

IV.

"I felt sorry for her. Poor woman." Shera placed a pair of Cid's working gloves that she had borrowed away in a tool drawer. She chatted with him while he was finally awake enough to comprehend the information she had gathered this morning.

"Old bat ain't have a heart attack and keel over did she?" Cid ripped into a piece of toast; scarfing down some food while he was on lunch break. He had stayed up much longer than he intended while working on some repairs in the _Tiny Bronco _last night.

"No, but whatever it was, it did give her a bad fright. There's quite a bit of damage on the right side of her home, blood," Shera recalled "and there were enormous animal tracks. Like…paw prints."

" 'xactly," Cid thickly swallowed a mouth full of milk to wash down the bread in his mouth "how enormous is enormous?" His mug was slammed back down on the table. He wiped milk from his facial hair with the back of his wrist and leaned in his chair with narrowed, skeptical eyes. Cid didn't like the sound of all of this. Not one bit.

"Like this." Shera held her hands apart, and measured out an approximate foot of space between them.

"That ain't no coyote. We're talkin' about a monster here." He frowned. "Shera go back in the closet n' get my spear."

Shera washed her hands at the sink at a slower pace. "Please?" She inquired with a straight face over her shoulder.

Cid grumbled. "Could you _please,_ go back in the closet n' get my spear."

"Captain, I would be happy to."

V.

The TV was clicked off using a tattered old remote. The absence of the static drenched the house in silence. Cid stretched out the kink in his neck and peeled himself with a low sigh from the couch. The rest of the beer in a lukewarm can was chugged, and then tossed in recycling. Cid had been up since earlier this evening. Hadn't heard a damn thing. It really irritated him. With another sigh, he shoved a sharpening rock away in a drawer, mounted one of his freshly polished spears back up on a wall in the downstairs closet, and figured it was probably best he got to bed.

VI.

The very next morning, Cid woke with a pounding migraine. He flipped over in bed (with a bit of difficulty) and yanked a pillow over his head to block out the bright light and sound. It was far too fuckin' early in the morning for someone to be complaining loud enough to be heard through the window_. "Shut the fuck up!"_

Frustrated, Cid flung off the covers and stopped across the room to the door. He back tracked for just a moment and muscled through his physical aches to yank on a pair of underwear and pants, and then continued his stomp down the stairs to the front door. He flung it open with Shera's name on the very tip of his tongue.

"We need to talk." Nanaki was sitting on the front steps instead.

"Red?"


	2. Chapter 2

I.

Shera didn't know what to think of the red beast sitting in the middle of the living room. She was aware that he was one of Cid's associates, but that was as far as her knowledge of him went. Hazel eyes scanned with minor suspicion. A creature was lurking town, and Nanaki just-so-happened to appear. Like her housemate, she was curious to know why he traveled thousands of miles, out of his way, to visit Rocket Town.

"I hope you've had some time to recover." He began. Nanaki's long tail lazily flicked back and forth; flame carefully held above the hardwood and away from stray fabric. His bright, intelligent eyes looked between Cid and Shera seated on the scratchy living room sofa before him.

"Yeah, I'm doin' alright. You came all the way from Cosmo Canyon? What's the deal?" Cid didn't want to admit that he was still recuperating, so he hopped straight to the point.

"I didn't." Nanaki briefly shook his head and sank down to fully rest on his belly. "I came from North Corel."

"Why were you all the way up in North Corel? Ain't nothing there. Nothin' here either." Cid tugged a fresh cigarette from the box behind the strap of his goggles, and scraped around in his jacket pockets for a lighter. Shera had yet to say anything. She hoped that listening would help her make sense of things.

"I was looking for Barret. Luckily, I found him there instead of Midgar. He's probably in Midgar by now, but I was asked to travel here to speak with you as well. I would have contacted ahead of time if I were able." Nanaki sighed. He responded to the bulk of Cid's questions while managing to avoid fully answering why he was there.

"Why?" Shera's brows furrowed. She fanned the air around her to clear the fresh smoke Cid puffed out from the corners of his mouth.

"There's a problem." Nanaki continued to be vague.

"When ain't there a problem?" Cid bit the cigarette filter. He could practically _feel_ all the unnecessary amounts of travel he was going to be getting into again. "Didn't we_ just_ fix somethin'?!"

"It's a little irritating. I understand." Nanaki lowered his head to his paws. He licked a long, relatively fresh cut along the side of his muzzle. "If you're well enough to join the party again, I think everyone would appreciate it. Cloud can better explain. You should contact him if you're interested." He leapt up not a second after finishing his sentence. The beads in Nanaki's mane clicked with the short movements of his head. His ears swiveled back behind him; listening for something.

Shera didn't know Nanaki, and even she considered his behavior odd. She pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and shot Cid a side glance. He had the very same expression.

II.

"So?" Shera spoke with a partly full mouth. She crept from behind the corner leading to the house phone while Cid ended his conversation.

"Clean up duty is what it sounds like." The Captain pushed the phone back into the hook and unclipped the leather bands around his working gloves. He removed, and then tossed them off to the side on the counter. His empty dinner bowl was chucked in tepid dishwater. "Pretty boy was talkin' about getting rid of some loose experiments. All the monsters we ain't have a chance to get to are poppn' up again. Cain't get a fuckin' break these days."

"Experiments?" Shera absently picked through her food and stood at attention a pace or two ahead of her housemate. She could see that he was going to leave the bowl and spoon in the sink unwashed.

"Yah, that's right. I ain't tell you about the psycho we ran in to, did I? He was pretty much the whole reason why the Planet was almost six feet under. Y'know, aside from those Mako reactors." Cid stepped off to the right, and Shera made the same movement. He moved a step to the left. Shera did the same again.

"No, you didn't. You can wash that bowl in the sink while you tell me about it." She granted Cid a very polite smile.

The Captain muttered a few curses under his breath, turned, and bitterly acted upon Shera's suggestion. His hand sloshed around the murky water in search of the sponge. "Professor Hojo. Did some pretty disgusting shit to folks." Cid kicked open the sink cabinet with his foot and took out a new bottle of dish soap. As childish as he was for thinking so, he hated having to be held accountable for house chores. A promise is a promise, right?

"I might have heard something from a radio report. You know they're slowly scooping out ShinRa's dirt." They had enough to cover three landfills. "He conducted inhumane experiments on unwilling participants?"

"Sure did. I almost got in a pretty bad scrap with Hojo when it came down to the wire. Old hack had one hell of a fight in em'. An fuckin' _ugly _one, too." Cid handed her the bowl he'd just washed and switched it out with the now empty, used bowl in her other hand. He was sucked into his own thoughts. He was thinking of some of his past conversations with Vince. Good ol' Vince. Red had been a victim at some point. Cloud. Aerith, too. Thinking about that poor girl made him sick to his stomach.

"Sounds horrible. At least what mess he left behind can be cleaned up." Shera pulled the yellow band from her hair and wrapped it around her wrist. Her brown tresses fell to her back and around her shoulders. She reached up after drying the bowl she rinsed off, and placed it away in the proper kitchen cabinet.

"No guarantees, but we can damn well try. Who knows what kinda shit he was up to. We'll just have to see what we can do." Cid yanked out the stopper to drain the sink water.

"Are you going to meet up with them?" Shera bit the edge of her lip. If Cid was going, a strong part of her wanted to go with him. The other part of her argued that there would be no one to watch over the house. The probability that one of Hojo's creations was robbing the town of its peace of mind was high.

"Neh," Cid shrugged, dried his hands, and walked past Shera in the direction of the stairs "said I'd probably get to em' in a week er two. Not really feelin' at max capacity just yet."

"Taking your medicine would probably help, Captain." Shera quipped; turning out the light in the kitchen.

"Well, babe, ain't you fuckin' feisty this week?"

III.

Not quite a smile, not quite a grin tugged at the corners of her lips. Shera gazed down at her polished toes in fuzzy floor rug fibers. A sigh escaped her. Her eyes were dry and lids heavy with tiredness, but she felt well. Slow fingers maintained a constant, ginger motion over the warm buoyancy of her cheek. She could still feel where Cid's facial stubble had scuffed her. They had teeter-tottered on the issue of his current condition, and he ended the banter with gently gifting Shera a kiss goodnight.

It wasn't the first time they'd shared the sort of gesture. Even she was able to occasionally kiss Cid on his lips, or cheek. Shera bashfully remembered them sharing a bed (another story for another time) before Meteor had shrouded, and made the future unpredictable. Now that things were clearer, and old grudges set aside, they'd been able to chip away at the formality that fundamentally separated them. Shera quite liked it; actually being able to be Cid's close friend (that probably wasn't the correct term for the current mechanics of their relationship) and not his unlucky assistant.

Shera suppressed a deep yawn and reached over a small coffee table to her bedside lamp. She twisted the creaky knob; dousing her room in darkness. From what she could tell, Cid wasn't snoring just yet, but would be soon in his own room down the hall. She closed her eyes, drew the covers over her shoulders, and allowed the obnoxious refrains of crickets to lull her to sleep.

IV.

Eyes snapped open. She was out of bed before she could fully comprehend the sharp sound that roused her from sleep.

"Captain?" Shera rasped. She tied on a warm robe and trotted out to the hall only to find he wasn't there. The door to his room was left open with a note. She ripped it from the wooden surface and read it while slinking downstairs. Cid couldn't sleep and stepped out for a beer? Shera thought that was what it said. The handwriting was lazy; like Cid had been half asleep when he got the craving.

Suddenly, an indistinguishable figure moved beyond a window. The figure's intimidatingly large shadow swept past the hard brackets of moonlight cast on the hardwood floor. Thick silence was broken by the crunch of grass and heavy, humid breathing. Shera smothered the instinct she had to turn on a light, and very slowly, very _quietly_ peeled open the closet door. She dismounted the sharpest spear up on the wall, and clutched it like the Captain had taught her years ago. Armed, and trying to remain calm, Shera crept up to the side she assumed the figure had prowled around to.

Several moments past with minimal sounds. Shera strained her ears to listen, and tried to focus her senses over the thumping of her heartbeat. Almost a quarter of an hour ticked away on a digital clock in the living room. She heard nothing. Nothing. Still Nothing. The coast was clear.

Thickly swallowing her pulse, Shera slowly unlocked the back door and poked her head out. She was met with damp air and the wail of unphased moon cicadas. Again, she decided against turning on any porch lights. Shera resettled her grip on the heavy weapon in her hands, looked to the left, looked ahead, and then looked to the right. Squinting, she could barely make out displacements of grass and scratches of sharp nails in the porch wood. Aside from that, there was nothing to see. She administered one last scan of the yard before she considered retreating inside.

STOP.

Shera's heart lodged itself in her windpipe and her head snapped back in the direction of the cause of her intense alarm. One, two, glowing orbs were unwavering and seemingly suspended not too far off in the dark distance. Her pulse raced when she realized that they were eyes. 'It', a quadruped, shifted and snarled at a volume that curdled her blood. Shera could finally separate it from the solid block of tree line, and tell just how big this creature was.

She blinked, and like a ghost, it was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

I.

Sounds and varying intensities of light invaded her senses. There were heavy footsteps behind her and a presence looming above. Shera licked dryness from her lips and uncurled from the tight ball she had been in under her comforter. She wasn't fully awake when her eyes cracked open; awareness far behind her body. Shera barely registered that morning had come.

"Ain't you hear me callin' you? I've been looking all over the house for this thing, and _you _got it." Cid swayed back to avoid Shera's forehead smacking into his. He peeled her stiff fingers from the grip of his spear after she snapped to attention, and held the pointy, dangerous bits up and away at his side.

"N-no, I'm sorry." Shera stammered and massaged her eyes. Tiredness was evident in the slight bags under her lids. The encounter last night had sensitized, and stolen her ability to tune out sounds in the house. She kept expecting the unwanted visitor to return and claw its way in. Her hands fell to her lap, and she blinked away the blur of a poor night's rest to give Cid proper eye contact. "Where in the world _were_ you last night?"

"You see the note? Went out for a beer at the bar. Kinda lost track of time at the counter talking about digging up some scrap parts." He began to ramble. "M' gonna start collecting for that ship I told you I was workin' on. Got to fix the Bronco, too." Cid scowled. Shera was giving him a weird expression. "What?"

"When did you get back?" Shera was mentally questioning what Cid had on. For one, his chest and torso were bare, and two, he had on a pair of grey sweats she hadn't seen him in in years. She folded away the covers and righted her glasses. Shera rubbed itchy indents in the palm of her hand. Ringlets of materia slots were pressed into the calloused insides of her knuckles. She'd been clutching that lance all night.

"Came back 'round three somthin. Why?" Cid placed a hand on his hip. His other loosened in grip, and the butt of his spear fell with a thud to the hardwood.

"I saw last night, what our neighbor must have seen the night before. I don't know how she didn't have a heart attack! _ I _almost did." Shera combed her fingers through her disheveled hair; pulling out a knot or two. She gathered the locks up, and tied them into a pony tail with the yellow band around her wrist. "Some of the porch is scratched up where it was. It was back near the woods when I walked out. It growled at me, and then took off before I could move again."

"What the hell?! You alright?" Cid took a half-pace back to give Shera some room to stand from bed. He scratched at a bit of tapped down gauze over his hip.

"I couldn't sleep very well after it vanished, but I'm fine. I had to borrow your spear just in case."

"Better that than nothin'. I ain't get to see the back porch." With the amount of alcohol in his system when he came home, Cid didn't notice a thing.

"I should probably go downstairs and take a look with you now that there's some daylight." Shera stretched and a few of her bones popped. She watched Cid scratch at another bandage. Some of his old dressings appeared irritated and messed over. "Don't scratch." She placed her hand over his wrist. "I can change those after I'm more awake."

II.

"Yes…" Shera pressed the house phone under her neck so that she could utilize both of her arms. She stood in the center of her room; passing warm, freshly washed clothes from a wicker basket to a drawer. "At six? I'll certainly be there…No, the Captain and I are fine. Nothing is stolen or missing." Shera nudged a drawer shut with her knee. "Thank you very much. See you then." She puffed out her cheeks and clicked a button to end the call.

"Juuust great." Shera was now obligated to attend a town meeting within the next week. Which, was considered a rare occurrence. Rocket Town only called meetings to decide over new shop or housing additions. She'd figure out some way of coaxing the Captain into going with her later.

Clicking her tongue, Shera left her bedroom in the direction of Cid's. She knocked on the door, waited to make sure he wasn't inside, pushed it open, and placed the empty basket down on his unkempt bed. She had a mind to make Cid wash his own clothes, but no, only one new responsibility at a time. Shera knew it was better to ease him into things instead of dumping all the chores he'd dodged for years on his head at once.

"Is he thirty-three, or thirteen?" She pressed her tongue to her cheek and scooped discarded articles of clothing from the floor. A black shirt (which had been white at some point) in his clothes pile was soaked in steering fluid and made his whole room smell waxy. Shera's nose crinkled. It was the first to go in the basket.

She collected underwear, patchy socks, numerous dirty shirts, some other shirts that had probably been clean but were now dirty by association, and work pants. She assessed the dark green fabric with her fingers; poking and wriggling her digits through oddly placed rips in the pants legs. Threads looked like they had popped right out of their seams. Cid was so _hard_ on clothes. Hard and forgetful.

Shera was counting; some of his clothes were missing: three more work shirts, another pair of pants, and his flight jacket. The clothes she did have were all covered in annoying little clumps of organic fibers. Cid was always covered in something that put the washer through hell.

At any rate, all of it felt like more investigating. That was beginning to wear her out.

III.

"This meeting is now called to an order! Er, what's first on the agenda?"

"If he would look at the damn paper, he'd know." Cid muttered. He slumped in the hard, wooden court bench he was forced to sit on. Shera was half listening to the beginning of the meeting, and half listening to Cid complain off to his side.

It was astounding how many people were there. Every familiar and unfamiliar face in Rocket Town trickled in one by one to take their individual seats. She wondered if they were really there because of pure unease, or a mass amount of nosiness. This was a titillating mystery. Of course, it went without saying what the majority of the meeting would be about.

"Why the hell are we here?" Cid complained again. The coordinator conducting the meeting seemed a bit out of sorts. He shuffled through the agenda before asking for some suggestions from Rocket Town's understaffed community board members. They were ex-ShinRa employees who decided to stay behind like the Captain and his First Mate.

"We're going to break from the usual conduct, and begin opening up the floor for discussion. As you all know, there's been a nightly problem, and I've heard from many concerned voices." The Head of Board spoke. She scratched beneath the bun of her hair with a pen. "To start things off, I'd like to hear some accounts of this 'midnight terror'." She heavily air-quoted with her fingers. A few residents raised their hands. Shera didn't offer her hand just yet.

"You not gonna say nothin'?" The Captain muttered. He couldn't actually raise his hand; he wasn't the one who saw the mysterious creature.

"I'm going to wait." Shera pursed her lips. She was inattentively picking fuzzy little fibers from her sweater.

Mrs. Debora stood up from a pew with a huff and dramatically dabbed her eyes with a tissue. "My poor Pookie! My poor Pookie Cat was the first victim. I heard his precious yowl for help, and by the time I was able to get outside, he was gone. Nothing but c-cat hair and b-b-blood." Her tears turned hysterical. Cid rolled his eyes. This was going to be a long meeting.

"Who else?" The Board Head was jotting down notes after Mrs. Debora sat again. She acknowledged the next person.

"I was going to let my puppy out to use the yard." The widow from the other morning took her turn. "I snatched up my dog and ran as fast as I could because it was tearing after me. I thought I was going to die!"

"Doesn't she live next to us? Where was I when all this went down?" Cid leaned over to mutter in Shera's ear. "You were asleep." She rasped back.

"You didn't actually see the creature?" Head Honcho asked.

"No." The older woman shook her head. "I couldn't stop in time to see what it was. I was running for my life, you know!"

"Understood. Anyone else?" They wrote down what little information could be gathered from the widow's sighting. Other hands rose and they all disclosed, hopefully truthful, accounts of sighting the nightly terror. Apparently, this week's victims were two sheep, a yard goat, and a fully grown chocobo.

The meeting room was relatively silent while the woman clicked her tongue in deep thought. She turned over her notes once, then twice before speaking again. Everyone was giving each other very wary looks. Cid was bored out of his mind, and Shera still neglected to raise her hand.

"Am I the only one noticing a pattern here?" Head Honcho chewed a pen cap.

"A pattern, Ma'am?" The meeting's coordinator was confused.

"A cat. Two sheep. A goat. A chocobo. Connect the dots." They explained with a sigh. "Animals, and in increasing order of size." She placed her writing utensil down and stood from her perch. Head Honcho stepped down a small section of stairs to the seating floor. "This nuisance requires a lot of raw meat. It's hungry. Isn't it?" Murmurs between those seated filled the poorly lit court.

"Something should be done about it before our problem advances in severity. If not, we'll eventually find some of our residents on its menu, won't we?" She rubbed her temple. "I would like to nip this predicament in the bud A-S-A-P; however, I don't want to pull together a plan without having a good look at what we're dealing with. From what I gather, this isn't your common woodland pest. I should probably start the next segment of discussion with asking if we have any volunteers to—Yes? " She paused when a hand slowly rose off to the side of the room. Everyone turned their heads and gave the raiser their full attention.

"It's between seven and ten feet tall. Maybe eight hundred to a thousand pounds. It could walk upright on two, and down on fours, Ma'am." Shera felt a little uncomfortable with all eyes aimed in her direction.

"You saw it, Ms. Joules?" The Board Head's brows knitted over her eyes. She wondered why Shera hadn't mentioned anything before.

"Yes. I did." Shera adjusted the high collar of her sweater. "It left before I could see any more of it, but it looked to be some sort of dog? Their eyes glowed blue. Like—"

"Like Mako?" As a prior ShinRa employee, the Rocket Town official knew a thing or two about Mako. Things made more sense to her now.

Shera confirmed with the gentle nod of her head.

"What about you, Captain Highwind?" Everyone shifted over a space from Shera to Cid.

He wasn't as uncomfortable as his partner with having a surplus of attention. "Don't know a damn thing. Ain't seen it myself." On the inside, though, he had his own suspicions. He pulled a cigarette from a carton in his pocket, and lit it with a lighter. His speech was muffled by the filter wedged between his molars. "Do know that we can take care of it, though. Whatever it is, I've probably seen way worse."

"And by 'we' you mean the little 'group' you've participated in?" Whispers were passed in the room again. Maybe, if the vigilante group had tackled Meteor, this wouldn't be too much of a hassle?

"Sure do."

"Well," the committee official took a moment to mull it over "let's vote on it. All in favor?"

The vote was unanimous.

IV.

Being back up in the air and traveling from place to place with his friends felt pretty good. Leaving Shera at least two of his spare lances, Cid packed up some of his things and took off with AVALANCHE again. Same old head hunting, minus all the crazy individuals. No Sephiroth. No time limits. Just easy business.

There were nights that kept Cid awake and wondering. He pulled down a hammock from his personal cabin and lied awake wondering what Shera was doing at home. Probably pissed off at him. He knew she wanted to come. Probably sitting with every window locked. Neither liked the idea of her being alone, but people back in Rocket were slowly learning to check up on each other. He trusted she could manage just fine on her own.

Almost every morning pissed him off. Everyone would get up-and-at-em for the day, only to have the hype delayed for a highly needed repair. No parts broke consistently (that pissed Cid off even more). Deep gashes here. Something ripped off there. This busted. That busted. He really needed a new ship. The _Highwind _was an old girl. Old and still damaged from the last fight she endured. At some point, Cid began to wonder if the _Highwind_ was truly breaking on her own. The notion he brewed in Rocket Town resurfaced from the back of his mind.

The Captain found it curious (everyone (even Cait Sith for fucks sake) found it curious) that Nanaki tended to be missing in action a majority of the time. If you wanted to see where the red beast had gone off to, you had to dig and comb through every nook and cranny of the ship. He was spookier than a hoarded house cat. What's the goddamn deal?

"How's the front line cadet?"

"All quiet on the front, Sir. Not a single attack." Shera's voice crackled with the frequency of the radio.

"Shera, I think somethin' is up with Red." He scratched the stubble of his chin and responded through a receiver.

"I was worried about him, too." Cid could hear her sigh.

"I mean…er, I could be wrong. M' really hopin' I'm wrong, but he ain't bein' himself." He lowered his voice. "Somethin's been tearing up the ship, too."

"Come again?"

Cid looked behind him to make sure no one was up late and wondering from compartment to compartment. "Something's been busting up the ship. It's already going to hell, so I thought it was just age gettin' to her. Not thinkin' that anymore."

"Ms. Lockhart and Barret radioed me yesterday and mentioned something like that. At least one or two areas damaged every morning?"

"You heard 'em right. You thinkin' what I'm thinkin?"

"Unfortunately."

"You go on and head to bed, alright, babe?"

"Alright, Captain. Goodnight?"

"I'll be back before you know it. Night, Shera."


	4. Chapter 4

I.

The ant bites along Shera's ankles began to itch again. She pulled off her gloves, so she could have access to her nails to scratch the irritating welts. "Okay, time for a break." She was going to go crazy if she didn't put some sort of reliever on them.

With a yawn, Shera dusted planting dirt from her thighs and tried her very best to ignore the itchiness on her feet. She knew she should have put on some boots instead of going bare foot, but Shera didn't expect to fiddle with her garden for long. Oh well, lesson learned.

She assessed the work she had done, and the work left to do before standing up straight. Shera stretched out the stiffness in her back, and bent out the strain in her knees. With eyes focused on the grass for any more anthills, she made her way toward the back porch. A little clump of something passed in the very edge of her peripheral vision. Shera slowly came to a stop. What was this?

Her joints popped from crouching again. Shera gently combed her fingers through the grass. Frizzy little fibers clung to the texture of her sweaty digits. She rubbed the hair between her pads and found that it was incredibly soft. The sunny, russet tone of the hair struck her as familiar. Shera had been picking the darn stuff out of the laundry.

If there was animal hair (Maybe from the creature?) in the yard, how in the world had it been getting in their clothes?

II.

"Yes, thank you. I would love some." Ross, Rocket Town's top community official, gave the interior of the Captain's home a brief scan. She took her seat at the table, unclipped the colorfully beaded chain of her glasses, and placed the lenses down on the wood top.

"How do you like your tea?" Shera was a little nervous while she tried to make the older woman more at home. Of all of her time living there, she'd never talked to the official on a personal basis. She wondered what Ross was here for. She was at the door almost as soon as Shera changed out of her gardening shorts.

"With a teaspoon of butter. No sugar." Ross folded her hands in her lap. "You know, I was hoping that Captain Highwind would be here." She tightly pursed her lips; thanking Shera again when a steaming tea cup was placed in front of her. Her wise, snake-like eyes followed Shera's movements as she sat down in a creaking wooden chair across the table.

"I was hoping he'd be here, too." Shera was brushing potting dirt from under her nails beneath the tabletop. She was a little cautious of where this unexpected conversation would go.

"You're probably wondering why I'm here." Head Honcho, as the residents liked to call her, cleared her throat. "I wanted to thank the Captain, so no worries. We've had a very peaceful week or so, and I thought it best to give him and possibly his group my best regards face-to-face."

Shera awkwardly smiled. "Um—"

"I was extremely worried about this whole 'creature' business. I've been keeping tabs on some of the nightly ShinRa dirt dishes, and my, the mound that they have is endless. "

"Ma'am?" Shera didn't want to interrupt; but…

You couldn't imagine how displeased I was to catch wind that some of the dirt made its way here again. Killing things, and possibly people, no less." Ross dismissively waved her hand, and took another sip from her cup. She thickly swallowed and licked her lips. "So, if you happen to catch your…companion, tell him I said thank you."

"I wouldn't say thank you just yet, Ma'am." Shera gracelessly tugged on her t-shirt collar. Ross caught the avert of her eyes, and the smile vanished from the older woman's face.

"Care to explain what you mean by that, Ms. Joules?"

"The Captain and his friends did stay here three or four nights before leaving, to see about the creature, but it never appeared. Still hasn't." A very stiff pause filled the kitchen after she spoke. The silence was accompanied by the slow roll of Ross' red, glazed finger nails on the dining tabletop.

"I promise they'll be back again to follow up." What a horrible time for murphy's law to prove itself true.

III.

Cid's cabin hammock swayed like the pendulum in a grandfather clock. He rocked back and forth; body weight in the strained fabric causing the pulley system holding him up to gently squeak. His half-lidded eyes were trained on the rhythmic twinkle of bright red, bright green control lighting above. He was hypnotized.

A few moments ago, his mind was bustling with contemplations. Cid was thinking of Shera again. She normally radioed him around six in the evening, but she hadn't called, and it was almost nine now. He was thinking of Vincent. All of AVLANCHE was there but him, and he really did miss talking to the old guy. He was also thinking of Nanaki. That topic was an open bucket of worms.

His inner monologue grew numb after a while and faded to half-conscious static. Cid was falling asleep, and sleeping was confirmed when his eyes drifted closed. In his dream his lungs were filled with _wrath _and the marrow cores of his bones were on _fire_.

IV.

Cid spat cigarette filter fuzz from his mouth. He'd grinded the orange portion into mush between his teeth. He was fed up goddamnit! The _Highwind _wasn't _this_ problematic on her own.

"What seems to be the issue now?" Cloud traveled up a set of thin, bracket stairs. Cid paused him before he could come up all the way and get a good look at the damage.

"Just busted another pipe." He lied. "I told ya she was getting old. Still working on a new ship backn' Rocket."

"How long will this one take to fix?" Cloud ran a hand through his spikey head. This whole pattern of repairs and delays had long since turned into a regular thing.

"Eh, not all that long." The Captain changed the subject. "Y'all seen Red?!" He called out; gloved hands cupped around his mouth.

"Nope!" Yuffie was kicking her feet over a metal rail while sharpening some of her knives with the rock she'd stolen from Cid's home.

"I don't think anyone has since dinner last night." Tifa called back from across the bridge. It was true, no one had seen him. "I'm really worried."

"Me, too. I'm uh, I'm gonna go n' find em' before I start working on this." Cid scowled while turning back to the mess in front of him. It felt as if every night, something was trying to claw its way out. He stuck each of his fingers in the deep, individual slashes through the aluminum lining and followed the cuts all the way down until they stopped. Déjà vu struck him in the back of his head.

V.

If it weren't for the flame on the tip of Nanaki's tail, Cid would have never found him. He followed the dull light illuminating the undersides of machinery until he came to the source. Hand on a humming pipe, he crouched down and looked to find that beast was curled up in the dark corner beneath. Nanaki raised his head from his paws and waited for Cid to say something. He knew good and well he was behaving abnormally.

"I don't want to dig in yer business er' nothin', Red." Cid sank down onto his bottom. He rested his forearms over his knees and scratched under the band of his goggles. "But I think you know, and I know somethin' ain't right."

The beast lowered his head again and deeply sighed through his nose. His hind legs shifted out from under him and he moved from a lying on his stomach, to laying more on his side. "I…I apologize. I honestly haven't felt well."

"You sure you want to talk about it? Don't have to." Cid lowered his voice and looked around the corner to see if anyone was coming. It'd be his luck if Cait Sith popped up with his megaphone and broadcasted personal business to the whole crew. Maybe Reeve was on the other end, just as curious as everyone else.

"I don't know what affliction I'm meant to be speaking of. I must sound strange." Nanaki grunted.

"A lot of stuff has been strange, Red. You can tell me. You're worryin' the hell out of us." Cid's eyes adjusted to the dark. He was finally able to get a good look at his friend. It looked like Nanaki had visibly lost some weight, and his coat was missing its usual luster. The beast's normally bright eye was dull. In a rare demonstration of intuition, Cid removed one of his gloves. He gently swept his thumb across the very tip of Nanaki's nose. It was hot and dry. "Red, you're sick."

"I know."

VI.

Perhaps this wasn't the best idea, but Shera routinely got cravings. Not typically for food, of course. Sometimes she craved activities. She went through a short list of 'chores' before deciding she deserved to go out.

The very first task on her list was venturing to the garage and radioing Cid since she had neglected to yesterday. They talked and caught up for a long while. She told him of the uncomfortable two hours she had to endure ' displeased rambling, and then the extra hour of trying to coax the older woman into leaving.

"Everyone seems to think that you all took care of it." Shera adjusted the radio receiver in her palm and picked through the supplies in a tackle box. "You should have seen her face when I told you about it never appearing. Abracadabra, her good mood was gone." She mumbled and untangled a three sectioned hook from an old piece of line. "She'll probably let the town know that the threat might still be out there."

"Shoulda told her not to get her granny panties in a knot. We'll be back in Rocket tomorrow to see if it'll show up this time. We gottah drop Nanaki off anyway."

"Nanaki? How come?" Shera tossed a knife in the tackle box and snapped it shut. She looked around the garage for one of Cid's old poles. The radio cord twisted around her shoulders.

"He's sick. Whole crew had to convince him to see a doc…er, vet. Don't think he likes bein' in a 'sterile environment'. It's for the best though." She could hear the Captain scratching his chin.

"You think taking him to a professional and seeing what's wrong will stop the creature from ever coming back? I don't want to point a finger at your friend, but the moment you leave, the damage here disappears and pops up again where you are. I think the poor fellow is our culprit, and whatever he has is what's making him vicious at night."

"Makin' it sound like reverse rabies, but I get what yer' trying to say, Shera. It's alright. Never seen Red sick before, he looks real bad."

"Have you told anyone else? AH!" Shera squeaked after almost yanking the radio off the work table.

"Nope. I don't want to tell Red's business. If anybody else has been trying to figure things out, they ain't said nothin' yet." He was confused in his voice. What the hell was she doing over there?

"I look forward to helping when you get back. I think I'm going to go fishing so you all have something to eat when you get here."

"Ain't it a little late?" Cid hummed in slight disapproval.

"Just a bit. I promise I'll be careful." The speaker rattled with her trying to set the radio back upright. She unwound the cord of the receiver from her arm.

"Bring one of them spears just in case. Y'hear?!"

"Yes, Sir." Shera rolled her eyes.

"Oh, and ah, Shera?" He had one more thing to say before signing out.

"Yes?"

"I miss you."

"I miss you, too."

VII.

Cicadas wailed out their last raggedy notes for the evening, joining the warm breeze that swept through to rustle grass and leaves. There were at least two or three more hours of sunlight left, and Shera figured it was enough to bring in a decent bucket of fish. Part of her walked down to the creek behind the house because she genuinely wanted something fresh for Cid's friend's to eat. Another portion, because she was a little stressed. Another portion, simply because she felt like it.

She redistributed the items in her hands. Shera held a plastic pail with all of her supplies in one grip, and one of Cid's spears in the other. She used the weapon as a guide while she walked a worn path back into a small section of woods. She very cautiously, checked the ground for threats, behind her for any surprise visitors, and confirmed that her cellphone was still on and in her pocket. Shera couldn't help but feel paranoid; even if much of her logical thinking confirmed that the reason for her caution was miles and miles away. Always, safe than sorry….sort of.

The soothing trickle of flowing water greeted Shera at the end of her walk. She propped the spear against a tree and unfolded a familiar wooden chair in front of a secure section of pressed down bank. Methodically, she dipped down in her bucket to begin preparing the rod she had taken with her. The cork segments were placed down on the grass, the reel, and tackle box after. Shera was going to click open the tackle box when she noticed an odd clump a short ways down the end of the bank. It was an unmoving mass of something old and ripped. Inwardly kicking herself in the leg, she placed the tool box down and traded it out for the spear still resting against a tree.

Sharp portion down, she paused a pace or two in front of the mass and prodded. Nothing dangerous, thank god. It was just old fabric. Old…familiar fabric. With a perplexed squint, Shera placed the spear upright, and used it as a support while she crouched down. She tugged the shredded material aside so she could better assess it.

It was Cid's flight jacket? Heavy emphasis on the 'was'. She only knew because the patch of his last name's initials was just barely intact. When Shera retracted her hand, it was covered in sunny, little russet fibers of animal hair, and old gritty clumps of blood.


	5. Chapter 5

**The fun thing about writing Cid is that I am incredibly familiar with his kind of accent. Actually, I speak with a watered down version of his accent. (I live in Texas) **

**The fun thing about writing Shera, is that there isn't any great detail explained about her in the game. The possible intricacies of her personality and character are endless. **

**As you might have noticed, I find them both enjoyable to write. Enough of me, back to the story.**

* * *

><p>I.<p>

The scent of hot frying oil filled Cid's nostrils the moment he entered the house. Following the routine, even with the whole gang behind him, he tossed off his boots and chucked them down near the front mat. Cloud was the first to go by the Captain's example and remove his shoes, with Tifa untying her ruby reds after.

"Shera!" He called out after mounting one of his spears back up in the downstairs closet. Cid knew she was there, but she didn't respond.

"Shera?" Cid entered the kitchen and nudged the small of her back. She jumped; almost dunking a corn battered fish fillet in crackling grease. She shuffled back before any could splash onto her arm. Shera had been so absorbed in her thoughts that she hardly noticed most of AVALANCHE ruffle on in.

"You alright there? I called ya." He read her bewildered expression while chatter filled the house off in the living room. Voices, and the clunk and crinkle of several packing bags being placed on the hardwood mixed with the bubbling and sizzle that came from the kitchen. Cid was waiting for her to respond, but it took her a little while. He could tell she'd been deep in thought and was collecting herself before answering. Something had a tight grip on her contemplations…that wasn't always a good thing.

"Oh, I'm fine." Shera righted her glasses and offered her housemate a smile. "I'm sorry, you know how I get." She dismissed her behavior with the wave of her hand. "I'm almost done with this batch. You can all wash up and get ready to eat if you're hungry." Shera redirected her voice to the commotion in the living room. Yuffie was yapping the importance of removing shoes when entering a home to Barret. Cait Sith (snickering of course) interrupted the argument to let anyone who was interested know, that he would take off his little, brown boots if he could. And well, Nanaki didn't have to bother. He wiped his paws on the mat while they bickered, and laid down off to the side of the couch.

His entrance didn't go unnoticed. Shera excused herself from Cid's front and swayed out of the kitchen. The Captain was only slightly bitter that Shera didn't have her full attention on wholly welcoming him home. On a mental mission, she dried her damp hands on her pants, shuffled past the wad of friendly argument headed toward the bathroom sink, and kneeled down where Nanaki rested.

"I heard you were sick." By now, it was painfully clear that Red wasn't feeling well. Shera had been thinking of him since she'd heard he was ill, and more so since going fishing yesterday evening. Things weren't making sense anymore. Confusion had plagued the forefront of her mind and clouded her thoughts. Maybe speaking with Cid's friend would put her more at ease. If anything, she needed some sort of…lead? When in the world did she become a closet investigator?

"You heard right." His ears perked up. He could see Cloud listening to the start of their conversation out of the corner of his eye. Tifa briefly passed through his wide range of left vision. Knowing she was listening, too, he noticed her trot off to the kitchen to courteously look after the fryer. "Did the Captain tell you?" He asked.

"He did; over the radio." Shera wasn't sure if Nanaki was totally comfortable with being patted, but she instinctively lent out her hand to gingerly rub the top of his head. Her palm brushed in a steady, metronome; displacing the natural pattern of his fur. He didn't appear to mind. "When are you going to see a doctor?"

"Tomorrow morning. I am not looking forward to it." He sighed; eye closing. Something similar to a barely audible purr came from somewhere deep in his chest.

Shera lopsidedly frowned. "They're white, and official, but they're vet coats. Not lab coats. I know we aren't very close, but if it would make you more comfortable being there, I'd be happy to go with you." She suggested and stood up straight to clear the static from her previously bent legs.

Nanaki eyed Shera for a long moment. He assessed her while in internal debate. If Cid found her trustworthy enough to live with him in his home, he supposed he could trust her as well. "You're welcome to accompany me. I don't know what I'm supposed to expect."

"N' answer." Cid placed his hands on his waist. His working gloves were bunched in a pants pocket after removing them. "We'll have you fixed right up."

"Don't worry about staying up late with the rest of us to watch for the last monster." Cloud spoke up. "It's probably better if you sleep."

"Hey!" Tifa called out. "I think this food is ready!"

"Well, you heard er'." Cid was penetratingly glaring down the back of Shera's head. His attention was drawn away when Barret's irritated voice came from down the other short hall. "HEY! You goons better not have jacked up my goddamn bathroom with yer' shit talking. Let's eat!"

II.

"You know, I can feel when you're staring at me. You have sharp eyes, Captain." Shera tugged out the yellow band holding up her hair and looped it around her wrist. She combed out the knots in the brown strands with her fingers. She was quite tired, and quite thankful Cid's friends took it upon themselves to wash their own dishes after using them. Tifa put all the food away and made sure the floors were swept (just bar routine, explained), and Shera thought of her as incredibly sweet for doing so.

"I ain't starin'." Cid muttered. That was a damn lie.

"Are you upset with me?" She paused before the cabinet in the upstairs bathroom. Cid was leaned against the doorframe; watching her take out towels. He assumed she was getting ready to take her shower while the rest of the group rested downstairs. They agreed that they would all sleep for a few hours before getting up to rotate late night reconnaissance around Rocket Town.

"I ain't upset." That was also a lie. "I was just y'know, hopin' you'd be happier to see me." Cid rubbed the underside of his nose with the knuckle of his index finger.

Shera faced him and tilted her head a bit. Her hair fell in a curtain over her shoulder. "I _am_ happy to see you back home." Sincere, she looked Cid in his eyes. "You know I missed you, Cid. I've just had a lot on my mind. That's all." And the lot on her mind was a variety of questions. Not only for Nanaki, she had a few for Cid, too.

"I know, babe. Had that scrunched up look while we were eatin'. You get all tense right…in here." Cid snagged the bridge of Shera's nose and gently pinched it between his knuckles. He playfully dragged her face from side to side after stepping more into the bathroom. Shera's eyes impulsively snapped closed and a small grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. She laughed just a bit and it put them both at ease. "Listen, I'm bein' a jackass as usual, alright?" Cid didn't know how to tell her when he craved her attention.

"I know." Shera placed her hand on his wrist to guide his rough knuckles from the space between her brows. Her hazel eyes were caught in his briefly, and then her line of sight flickered to the hair of his sideburns, down his neck, and then to all the hair on his forearms. She squinted, but the expression was gone in the next instant.

Now, she knew Cid was not the kind of man to shave, but she also knew his stationary amount of body hair. He had gotten on the…_bushier_ side since she'd last seen him. He hadn't been gone that long, had he? Was Cid always this damn hairy? It was probably nothing. Just her being over observant again.

"What the hell you mean 'you know'?!" Cid snapped, but Shera knew he was joking. "'You know', my ass." He was trying to maintain a disgruntled expression but it was hard with her smiling at him the way she was. "You gonna take a shower?"

"I am. I figure they'll want to wash up in the morning. I should get mine out of the way." Shera paused to reach under the cabinet for a fresh bar of soap. "There's room for one more."

III.

Not having her glasses required that she had to squint, but just barely, Shera could make out the outlines of some of Cid's old wounds. She brushed shampoo suds from her forehead to prevent them from trickling down near her eyes. He didn't notice her observing him. Cid was preoccupied with adjusting the shower head above them.

Even with her blurred vision, she could tell that his cuts and gashes were still refusing to fully heal. It had been almost more than a half a year now. It was on a list of things she had been worrying about. Shera considered signing Cid up for a wellness check-up. He probably really needed one just as much as Nanaki did.

"Captain?"

"Eh?" He grunted and rinsed out his hair.

"What ever happened to your jacket?"

"My jacket? Which one?"

"Your flight jacket. With the patches. What ever happened to it? I didn't see it in the wash last week."

"No fuckin' clue." Cid cracked open one of his eyes. Water dribbled past his lids and down his cheeks. "I tossed it off one night'n it walked off."

Yes, walked off. Walked off into the woods and happened to soak up some blood on the way there. Shera bit the edge of her lip and changed to a slightly different subject. "Your clothes were covered in dog hair. In case you didn't notice."

"Oh, yeah, sorry bout' that." Cid opened the other eye. He had the faint hunch that he was being grilled.

"Dog hair?"

"Yeah? Or cat hair? I don't know what the hell Red is."

"From?"

"Red?! It's _red_ ain't it? Who the hell else?!"

"Alright, alright." Shera held up both of her hands. "It's just been hard to get all of the hair out of the washing machine. I'm only asking." She stepped around Cid to twist off the water. Shera rung out her hair, and carefully swung out of the tub and onto the bathroom rug.

"And I was just answern'." Cid hopped out a moment later.

"Who washes all of your dirty underwear?" Shera began as a way to remind him what he promised her.

"You do…?"

"Then you'd better be _nice_ to me."


	6. Chapter 6

I.

Slinking off to bed after showering was a little awkward. Cloud was probably on his way to the room Shera had offered to anyone who wanted one instead of sleeping on the floor downstairs. His bright, Mako eyes caught Cid's in the dim upstairs hallway. Cloud was briefly incredulous. A few things could be implied by the sight of their hosts walking out together. He pretended he didn't see them (for all of their sakes), and went about his business.

Cid wasn't wholly embarrassed to be seen being intimate with his housemate, but their relationship had been transitioning into something he didn't have a name for yet, or a proper way of expressing when other people were around. Hopefully, the ex-soldier wouldn't mention anything. Hopefully.

"You gonna stay up with the gang?" Cid's voice was muffled under the fabric of a t-shirt. He stuffed his head through the collar and tugged it down over his stomach. While her room was preoccupied, Shera decided it was best that she shared a bed with him.

"I'm not sure yet. I have to get up early to help Nanaki make it to the vet across town."

"You should probably sleep then, Shera. It ain't gonna show up tonight." Cid predicted. "Bet ya we'll end up having to track it down ourselves." He loaded a bullet or two into the hand gun he kept on his bedside dresser. Cid drew open a storage drawer and tucked the weapon down under some of his clothes. "Before Head Honcho stomps down here and bites a chunk out of my ass."

"Ross is going to bite into both of our asses. She called the house this morning asking if you were back yet." Shera sighed and drew back the comforter on the Captain's bed. She laid down, and it didn't take Cid long to draw back the covers on his side and spoon up behind her.

"It ain't like the damn thing has been pillaging the town again. She can pull the stick out of her britches n' wait. Should all be taken care of once you and Red figure out what's up. Right?"

"I hope so." But she really wasn't sure. Shera timidly placed her arm above the one that had been draped over her waist. The skin was almost hot to the touch. She could feel Cid's cool breath pass from his nose and ghost over the back of her neck. Goose flesh rose on the smooth skin of her shoulders, and her fingers absentmindedly fiddled with the wiry, blonde hair on his wrists. Shera shifted her hips to rest in a more comfortable position on her side, but she ran out of room and bumped into Cid's groin.

He was chewing on the inside of his cheek from behind where she couldn't see his expression. It always felt good to have Shera there with him, even if it would only be for a short while tonight. Trying his very best to mind his appendages (Cid prayed to god a little proximity and occasional friction wouldn't make his nature rise and turn things awkward) he propped his outward leg over hers under the sheets and closed his eyes. At least he wouldn't be this close to her when the sun came up. The morning salute wasn't something he could consciously monitor.

"Night." Cid grunted.

Goodnight." Shera didn't show any sign of being uncomfortable. He guessed everything was alright for now.

II.

A low, unnatural noise off to Shera's left roused her from sleep. Her senses were delayed. She had woken up too quickly, and her mind wasn't sure on whether to direct her body to sit up, lie still, or look around for the source of what woke her. It took a great deal of motivation to wrench herself from the submersion of partial unconsciousness. The room was silent, and the presence that had been pressed against her before falling asleep was missing.

Shera's hand felt the empty space of bed behind her. It was still warm where Cid had been. Lids that were heavy with drowsiness fluttered open and swiftly adjusted to the slight change in lighting. Her eyes first focused on the clock on the nightstand to determine what time it was. Maybe they were all getting ready to head out and scope the town? But, they couldn't be? No more than an hour and a half had passed since she retired. Shera sat up a bit and finally noticed the dark figure standing completely still at the end of the bed. She nearly jumped out of her skin. Her elbow hit the head board and she cringed.

"Cid?" Shera hissed.

No response.

"_Cid?!" _

She was apprehensive when he didn't respond the second time. The Captain's face was relaxed from any defined expression. Wary, Shera slowly crawled down to the end of the bed and lightly touched his waist. There was a bright, vibrant flicker of color in his eyes that disappeared so quickly she thought she imagined it. "Cid…?"

"Hn?" Whatever hypnotics he was under dissipated with the sighing end of his wide yawn.

"What are you doing?" Shera rasped. Was Cid sleepwalking?

"What?" He was completely confused by her question.

"What are you doing?" She asked again.

"Got up." That much, Cid was sure.

"Are you coming back to bed? You scared me half to death." Maybe he had to use the bathroom?

"Nah," he mumbled "I think'm gonna to head downstairs."

III.

The vet had no experience prescribing for Nanaki's species, but in general, they had a very clear idea of what was wrong with him. Lethargy, a dulled coat, weight loss, chronic fever, and dehydration. Interesting. "Not to worry, I think I'm very familiar with your problem, Mr. Nanaki. I'd like to perform a swab, if you're comfortable with that. I've never encountered a patient that I've been able to speak to."

"Whatever has to be done."

The visit didn't take very long. By the time it was over, Nanaki and his volunteered company were sent home with a box or two of something called fenbendazole. Shera allowed the medication's name to roll off the tip of tongue. She flipped the box over in her hand to read the dosage instructions. The medicine was relatively cheap. She told Red not to bother paying her back for it.

"A worm."

"That's it?" Yuffie's face twisted in disgust "Ewww…"

"That's what the physician said." Shera almost felt wary about the left over fish she was eating for lunch. "They did some type of swab, and confirmed that Nanaki has a rather vivacious tapeworm."

"Grrrooossss!" Their youngest member pushed her plate away and Cid dragged it in his direction. He was more than happy to finish her food for her.

"Damn, Red. What ya eat?!" Barret wasn't all that pleased to be informed either. Not the best topic while the group chatted over a meal.

Nanaki deeply sighed where he sat. He was heavily embarrassed and quite bitter about his predicament. No one was going to let him live this down. "A prairie rat probably. The one time I eat junk food…"

"You got something for it, right?" Cloud's brows were scrunched.

"Yes, something that's supposed to kill whatever I have. Something else, a vitamin supplement, I think. Apparently, I have to take frequent baths as well."

"Why's that?" Cloud spoke with a full mouth.

"Ah, maybe it's better that we don't go into to detail?" Tifa awkwardly tugged on one of her earrings.

"Agreed." The consensus was in unison.

The conversation transitioned back to serious business. Voices became the background to Shera's inner monologue. When she thought she had things pieced together, they turned out not to belong in the puzzle at all. The vet didn't find anything else odd or abnormal with Red. All he had was a worm, no chemical temperaments. No additives in his system that might have been making him aggressive. Not a trace of Mako. Suspicion of him was cleared from her mind, leaving space for nothing but frustrating blanks.

She looked up from pecking around her plate to watching Cid while he talked. Something…something was peculiar about him, and the peculiarness wasn't there before. Shera couldn't put her finger on what it was. It was a mystery, and so was finding his jacket caked with blood in the woods. What did all of this _mean_? It all gave her a headache, and she lost her appetite.

IV.

As Cid predicted, the first stakeout the night before was uneventful. There was no sight or sound of this mysterious, final monstrosity. AVALANCHE discussed setting up some method of tracking over lunch if tonight, the beast failed to appear again. It hadn't been a menace for quite some time in its origin area, but the group knew better to leave loose ends untied. The sooner this thing was officially exterminated, the better.

"If you get thirsty, just help yourself to the open barrel in the kitchen. I put it there for you." Shera's voice was quiet to match the late night hush that had settled over the house. The only lights on were the lamp off to the side of the couch in the living room, and the light over-heading the stovetop in the kitchen. She offered Nanaki one of the large, worn out pillows from the closet and tossed it down for him on the floor. "I won't be out for very long. I'll come back and let you know if there are any developments."

"I appreciate your kindness." The beast's tail twitched above the hardwood. It acted as a third, dull light in the home. He dragged the pillow off behind the couch, laid down, and curled up for the night.

Shera rubbed the itch of drowsiness from her nose and padded to the back door. Not bothering to put on any shoes, she trotted down the porch steps and mentally reviewed the different routes each member of AVALANCHE was designated to take. If she remembered correctly, Cid's route was the field before the launch pad. She could hear Cait Sith taunting Yuffie with his megaphone, and everyone hissing that he should put the damn thing away and be quiet.

Their voices faded behind the gentle breeze in her ears. Shera squinted through the bright light of the moon, and made out Cid's figure standing a few yards away from where the _Tiny Bronco_ was stationed for repairs. He was smoking, typical, and the flickering orange light of his lit cigarette stood out against the cool blue of the horizon. Yawning, she weaved around some large scale scrap parts for Cid's ship project and quickened her pace.

"Fuckin' scared me." Cid looked over his shoulder when she finally made it to where he was. He loosened his clamp on the long metal spear in his opposite grip. "I was gonna whip around and konk you aside yer' head. Don't be sneakin' up on me. Ain't learn your lesson last time?" He was wondering why he hadn't heard her coming.

"Sorry, I assumed you knew I would be looking for you." Shera winced and rubbed the long faded scar that used to be hidden under her bangs at the top of her hairline. A story for some other time.

"Woman, you ain't got any shoes on?!" He glanced down at her bare feet. No wonder.

"No. I'm surprised I haven't stumbled into an ant mound yet." Shera awkwardly laughed.

"You haven't? Well shit, so am I. Son of a guns are everywhere." The Captain exhaled and a ring of smoke lazily quivered out from his mouth. He let out a long sigh; expelling the rest of the exhaust through his nose.

"Tired?" Shera placed her hand on his forearm and gazed to the launch pad looming over the town. It was an eerie, black contraption contrasting the landscape and casting spindly, geometric shadows. The fog-like predecessor to dew hovered over the swaying grass. With the moonlight, the area was ghostly and mute.

"Like hell I am." Cid flicked away some ash. He looked down to make sure it wasn't glowing, and smothered it in the damp grass with the bottom of his boot. "I didn't sleep at all last night. Back hurts. Head Hurts. Hungry as hell. Kinda overheated, I'm fuckin' sweating. Pretty damn horny. I'll be glad when this is all over."

"Do you think it will appear tonight?" Shera squinted because one of his complains was not like the others. She laid her head against his arm and understood that the Captain was joking (probably (probably not)).

"Nah. It'll be a no-show, and we'll see if Red er' Pretty Boy can track it. Cloud's got a nose on him I guess. Mako modification n' all that technical shit."

"I see. If it doesn't appear I have a sample," Shera held her tongue "that you could probably use." She was certain that the Captain's discarded jacket had some sort of importance to what was going on. "You haven't seen anything, right?"

"Nope." Cid finished his cigarette and tossed it. Like the ash he'd been flicking to the ground, he made sure it was completely smothered. "Don't you stay out here with no shoes on."

"I don't plan to."

V.

Yuffie's high pitched scream cut through the early morning like a sharpened blade. It was verging on three in the morning, and Rocket Town was painfully silent until now.

Shera snapped up from the couch and Nanaki's back was stiff. The echo of Yuffie's voice faded. Tick, tock, tick, tock the clock in the living room filled the taught, viscous pause. The silence shattered when the scream was responded to by a blood curdling roar. The familiar, malicious tone of the roar struck a pulse quickening cord in Shera and she gasped; fearing the very worst.


	7. Chapter 7

**Aurenare, were you expecting a sultry shower scene? ;9**

Edit. I'm joking! I didn't mean it that way. ;o;

**Mimi, since you're so curious. I am eighteen.**

Edit. Yaasss, Mimi be my bae.

* * *

><p>I.<p>

A damp, twitching nose and tense muzzle crinkled upward to reveal long, glistening teeth stained with blood. The flat, pink tongue between sharp fangs curled with the rumble of an intimidating growl. A massive, ambiguously canine body prowled at the center of everyone's alarm. Enormous, hand-like paws made deep impressions in the ground below, and long claws displaced gashes of dirt when it dodged Barret's blitz of bullets. It was hefty, but swift on its feet.

"Yuffie! Yuffie, are you okay?!" Tifa dashed to their youngest member's side and scooped her up from the tree line before the beast could lunge again. The-would-have-been-prey was in agony nursing the gruesome puncture wounds in her thigh. The creature's cyan eyes illuminated the tapering pattern of thick, two-toned fur covering its face. The eerie orbs were still focused on who it had bit. It appeared to be completely agitated with missing its opportunity to make off with the smallest target available.

The brute's broad chest heaved with its thick breathing. Acute, ears flicked back against the top of its head as it roared again. It retaliated and twisted backward into whipping a stiff, unnaturally long tail into Barret's side. The blue pilot light at the very tip singed a gaping hole through the fabric of his jacket and seared his torso. When Barret groaned out in pain was when Shera lost focus of what was going on. She was still winded from dismounting a spear, stuffing on her boots, and running as fast as she could to take Cid's place. No one had any idea where he was, and the possibility he'd been attacked first made Shera nauseous. She was half way toward terrified, and fully panicking, but she was going to try her best.

Brightened by the light of the moon, the creature looked _everything_, and absolutely _nothing _like Nanaki. But, Shera knew for a definite fact that it wasn't the canyon beast. He was alert and snarling in defense _right_ next to her. Not totally sure what she could do, she watched with burning lungs as Cloud darted forward and slashed. She anticipated the ex-Soilder landing a fatal blow, but shrieked and ducked before she could become the victim of a mid-air guillotine. It clamped several tons of bite pressure down on the blunt end of Cloud's sword, ripped it from his grip, and flung it clear across the field.

Several more rounds of bullets filled the night. She braced her hands over her ears with everyone else when Cait Sith wailed something into his megaphone. The amplifier awkwardly shifted pitch and screeched. In the next instant, the creature was too irritated and sensitive in the ears to stick around.

"Don't let it run off!" Tifa swung Yuffie over her back and yelled. This might have been their only chance to get rid of it.

Not having another split second to think. Shera properly positioned herself like she'd been taught in the past, and threw all of her force into flinging the spear forward. Just barely, she could see the sharp end sink into the back of the brute's thigh as it fled. It almost stopped in its tracks; pausing just briefly to whip its head around and glare Shera down. Time froze before speeding up again. More gun shots. Not a yard or two more into the cover of the woods, it darted again and was obscured from vision.

"We'll let them go after it." Nanaki ran in the way of the path he was sure Shera was going to take. She almost tripped over him.

"We have to find Cid! What if he's hurt?!" No, no, no, no. There was a jitter in her fingers and a nervous chill that settled over her heart beat. Cold sweat beaded on Shera's forehead.

"Give me something and I'll track him. We _have _to move quickly."

"I don't have anything anymore!" Shera rasped; moving when Red did. It was hard to keep up with him.

"Then either we search without a scent, or look for the weapon you had. There's no time to run back to your home." Nanaki was tired and short of breath himself, but he pressed on.

II.

AVALANCHE's split teams had searched until the bright crown of the sun beamed over the horizon. They found a fresh trail of blood that crossed a large portion of the woods, but at the very end was nothing but the spear Shera had used hours before.

"Here's another." Shera's sigh was labored. The field she had found the Captain in last night was hushed and twinkling with dew. Birds chirped and awoke along with the songs of crickets. Crisp orange hues outlined the town's signature monument and quivering stalks of weeds.

Wiping dampness from her nose, she kneeled down and brushed grass and burrs from a second spear. The polished metal was cold and covered in little pebbles of moisture. She strained into standing up straight, and nudged shredded fabric with the toe of her boot. Remnants of what were probably Cid's clothes; it was scattered all around her. Shera could almost make out boot prints marred and messied by animal tracks. Grass crunching under Nanaki's paws drew her attention. He came to a stop and sank down onto his stomach. He was gently panting; exhausted.

"They haven't found anything." He licked dryness from his jaws and spoke. "Not that _abomination."_ Red had clearly noted the creature's appearance. "Not your partner, either."

Shera didn't know how to respond. Her shoulders were shaking. "How…how is Yuffie?"

"In pain, and complaining, but she'll be fine. Cloud wanted to continue searching for the Captain, but I believe you have company."

"Company?" Oh no…

III.

Ross looked from face to face. The table was divided, with most of AVALANCHE on one end, and Shera trapped with having to sit next to the committee member on the other. Yuffie was also locked there by default. Shera was doing what she could to tend to the ninja's wounds.

"Must have been quite the…eventful night." Ross unfolded her hands under her chin. Fatigue was written all over their faces. "Myself, and other board members received quite a few unnecessary calls about the racket. I take it that menace finally reared its head. Just in time, too." Ross nibbled on a vanilla biscuit. She dabbed it in a cup of freshly brewed tea before continuing. "I was already going to come by today to ask about it. I hope you all have some time to recover. Or not." She watched Shera dab dried blood from Yuffie's leg and pull out disinfectant from the house first aid kit.

"Ow ow ow ow owww!" Yuffie fidgeted in her chair. Both the disinfectant and alcohol stung like hell. She probably needed stitches more than anything. Her puncture wounds had dangerous diameters.

"I'm sorry. I can't make it hurt any less. At least not yet." Shera snapped the top back on a bottle and tossed bloodied cotton balls in a pail on the floor below her. Her tired eyes looked away from Yuffie's eyes and met Ross' for a moment. "We probably woke everyone up last night. It came, and we almost had it."

"It went after Yuffie. We wouldn't have known it was in the area until she screamed." Tifa sat with her legs crisscrossed in the chair. She was heavily laid against Barret's un-injured side. He had been patched up and given something to numb the sting before the conversation at the table started.

"_Almost _had it? So, it's yet again at hand." Ross snapped her tea biscuit between her teeth. She was more than displeased. "So the nuisance is _peskier _than you anticipated. I'm starting to think Captain Highwind isn't very well at keeping his promises. I think it's time I—"

"We've been doing the very best we can." Shera pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and side-eyed Ross. She handed Yuffie a roll of gauze. She held one end while Shera began to carefully wrap it around. "Look, we're all tired. It didn't get to eat anything last night, so it will be back." It was logical to assume." We'll think of something less straight forward."

"Not so." Ross pursed her lips and brushed crumbs from her fingers. "Mr. Tesult is now completely chocobo-less. The other one is gone now. Look," she held out her hand "I'm not blaming any of you, but I do agree we need to shift up our methods. If there isn't anything effective you can do to protect the people here, I will have to pull a few strings myself. We're lucky to have no human victims. I don't want it to progress that far." Her snake like eyes narrowed beyond the faces in front of her. "Where is Captain Highwind?"

A stale silence followed her question. Shera's mouth snapped closed. She couldn't answer. Knowing that the only answer was 'I don't know' made her throat sting.

"He disappeared last night." Cloud responded. "We were going to continue looking for him when you…" He wasn't able to finish his sentence.

Attention snapped to the door when it was flung open. Barret shot up from his seat. "Cid, what the hell happened to ya last night?!"

Pissed off as usual, Cid lumbered through; holding a hand to a splotch of blood on the back of his thigh. He was covered in grass and burs from head to toe, barefoot, and wearing a pair of pants he had snatched from the clothes line over the yard. Cid didn't even bother to answer Barret's question. He was livid. "WHERE THE _FUCK _IS MY SPEAR?!"

IV.

All of Cid's furious fussing ended in groaning. An awful lot of groaning. Barret, Yuffie, and Nanaki weren't the only ones suffering from a bit of damage. It took almost an hour to get Ross to leave so the group could rest in peace. They had a full day before they'd have to be on watch again. The older woman would only give them a few more days to rid of the nightly terror. After that, she warned she would be taking matters into her own hands.

"Ugh…what a bitch." Yuffie clasped her tea cup in her hands and poised herself on the couch were her bandages wouldn't brush the scratchy cushions. Cait Sith was stuffed under her other arm. His megaphone was thrown somewhere he couldn't reach it. "Snappy lady! We're doing this for free!"

"Yes, Ross can be a bitch, but she's just doing her job." Shera briefly removed her glasses to rub the bags under her eyes. She was so very tired, but there was much she had to do before she could rest herself.

"Whatever you say. Is it okay if I take…um, use this blanket?" Yuffie asked.

"Yes, just pull it down from the back there." She waited for her mind to buffer to figure out what else she needed to do. Let's see…She called a doctor about stitches. Nanaki had already taken his medicine (he was so far in sleep, his snore rivaled Barret's). Now, she just needed to climb the stairs and see about Cid again. These few weeks have been a wild ride, and Shera knew it was probably far from over.

Upstairs, Cid was sprawled, stomach up on his bed. Shera cracked open the door and quietly slipped inside. She gently bumped the door closed with her bottom and placed a tray atop an old crate in the corner of his room. She nudged items on the floor aside with her foot, puffed out her cheeks, and combed back stray strands of her hair with her shaking fingers.

"When are you gonna sit your ass down?" Cid's face was tense in immense discomfort. One moment he was cussing up a storm, and in the next, throwing up an alarming amount of blood in the downstairs bathroom. Cloud was worried about internal bleeding. Shera was mentally going off the deep end and thinking something else…

"I'll lie down as soon as I know everyone is taken care of." Shera stuck a thermometer in his mouth. She crawled up on the bed and gingerly maneuvered his head into her lap. Leaning over, she felt over Cid's scratchy cheeks. He was hot enough to burn, and he stunk, but thank god. He was relatively okay. _Nothing _could explain the relief she felt when he showed up through the back door. She would kiss him if he weren't in need of a good shower.

"You've been runnin' with yer head chopped off since yesterday morning. I'm fine, Shera. I just let my fuckin' guard down for one sec and it got me." He grumbled. Cid had the worst stomach (and head) ache in history, and he was angry at himself for getting caught up. He must have been knocked clean out. All he remembered was making it through the door not too long ago.

"Head chopped off…funny." Shera non-ironically rolled her eyes. "I'm going to rest, Captain. Don't worry." She plucked the thermometer from his mouth after it beeped and read the numbers along the screen.

"What are we lookin' at?" Cid tilted his head upward. Her thighs were soft under him. All he could see was the underside of her bust, chin, and nose.

"…One…one hundred two." Shera lied. Cid's temperature was a _ridiculous _one hundred and five degrees. Her fears were going to that crazy little place again. Nothing had made sense a day or two ago, and now all the pieces were coming together to paint an absurd picture.

"Shit. Caught a cold in that dew, too? I'm so pissed." His shoulders slumped. The Captain raised his forearm and laid it over his bare chest. He thought he felt bad before. This was a whole new level of total bullshit. There was a long gap. He was waiting for her to respond. "Hey? Ground't Shera? Do you copy?"

"...I copy." She placed the thermometer aside on the tray after clicking it off. Shera deeply sighed and absentmindedly ran her fingers through Cid's hair. They caught and plucked out stray pieces of grass. "If you think you can handle something in your stomach, there's a packet of dissolving tablets and a cup of water there on the tray." She smoothed his hairline back from his forehead and debated asking him more about what happened last night. Shera kept squinting, but wasn't fully sure why.

"I'm serious, Shera. Come over here n' lie down. You gonna fill me in on what I missed, or clock out?"

"_Alright_, Captain." She gave in. Shera untucked her sweater from her high waisted pants. She just about melted into the mattress the moment her head hit a pillow. Hand still in Cid's hair; she relaxed the rigidness from her spine. Her glasses were crooked, but she didn't feel like fixing them.

Over occasionally allowing him to dart off to the bathroom to somewhat empty his stomach, Shera was able to tell Cid about all the commotion that occurred last night, and what the status quo was now. She edged at trying to gently pry for his side of the situation, but he could never tell her anything that was helpful, or made any sense. To summarize, he awake, and then, nothing. Suspicious. Shera was refusing to ignore it this time.

He always seemed to be gone when the monster was present. All the hair in the house. His jacket out in the woods. His sleepwalking. The state of his physical condition. Hell, the condition Cid was in _now._ She saw the way he limped in; the splotches of blood that soaked through the fabric on the back of his right thigh. She deeply regretted hurling that spear. If she would have been connecting the dots then…

"Hello in there? Shera? Keep talkin', or go to sleep, babe."

"Oh, ah, I was saying that four members are down, so I volunteered to be medic if we're out watching tonight. Cloud and Ms. Lockhart left to purchase some things at the corner store. Potions and supplies for the trap we're going to rig."

"A trap, eh?" Cid chewed on the inside of his cheek. "Trap it, and then what?"

"I don't know." She brushed her fingers over his head again. Oh, heaven above, she didn't know. Shera finally noticed what she was squinting at. The hue of Cid's hair was odd. She didn't remember him being a strawberry blonde? Upon further inspection, the roots of Cid's hair were growing red. _No further convincing needed. _

How in the world did this happen, and why?! Was she going crazy? If she wasn't crazy, was Cid aware? Was _anyone_ aware? What was she supposed to do, if Cid really,_ really_ was this creature? The goddamn objective was to kill him. How was she supposed to explain all of this? She had a hard enough time trying to get herself to accept the conclusion. Everything has been absolutely bizarre and it was making her dizzy on top of the lethargy she already felt. Her headache was coming back and the bridge of Shera's nose immediately tensed. She snapped back to reality when Cid pinched the scrunched skin between his knuckles.

"Hey." He didn't know what she was inwardly yapping over. Probably worry in general. Shera tended to do that. A bit oblivious to the turmoil, Cid replaced his knuckles with his lips. A hand on the back of her head brought her closer and tucked near his chest. "You do too much. I ain't dyin' alright? You know me, I'm fine. I uh…I'm really sorry if I scared ya, Shera. I picked a bad night to be piss poor." He mumbled and felt the muscles slowly ease. "You mad at me?" He promised he wouldn't do this kind of stuff to her.

"I'm not mad at you, Captain. Not at all." But damn sure, there was_ someone_ to be mad at. She was going to figure this out. With the solid hunch she had, everything was different now.


	8. Chapter 8

**So, sorry for the long pause! I've decided to review what I have planned out. This fanfiction will be longer than I first envisioned. Gibbous will be something nice and spooky for you all to read this October. Kinda started out really spooky anyway. I hope to finish it on the 31****st****. Er…we'll see how it works out.**

**Also! If you are very interested in this pairing in general, I am an artist, and I do post art of them on one of my side blogs: Sherahighwind|tumblr. I have sketches of AU!Cid you might want to browse through. Advertising over. On with the story.**

* * *

><p>I.<p>

Shera had long fallen asleep at his side. His head was pounding. The gauzed wound on the back of his leg burned. His stomach ached. And all his older injuries were agitated again. Cid was fatigued, and in all manners of pain, but he didn't want to sleep. He instinctively stayed awake watching over Shera on the bed. Good thing, too.

Sleeping was a toxic idea.

II.

The long achy morning rolled on into evening. Shera was up again, leaving the visiting doctor to tend to Yuffie and Cid on the inside of the house. As expected, both of them protested to needing stitches. Coupled with the construction going on outside in the backyard, Cait Sith discovering where his megaphone had been hidden, and Nanaki's snoring, the house was filled to the brim with racket again.

In an attempt to smother the tiredness she felt with caffeination, Shera decided to brew a hot pot of coffee instead of tea. With a deep sigh (she'd been doing that a lot lately), she took the largest mug she could find from the kitchen cabinets, poured a generous amount of the bitter liquid, and shuffled outside. Sipping without scorching her tongue and paying enough attention to avoid ant mounds was tedious, but eventually she made it over to where Cloud, Tifa, and Barret were without spilling too much down her sweater.

"We've thought about going with a hole, but there's not enough time to dig one deep enough. Plus, I know Cid probably isn't going to be happy with a big gaping crater in his yard. Tifa and I think we came up with something practical enough." Cloud held one end of a thick, quadruple twined rope in his hands. Barret had other hefty pieces slung over his shoulder. Just looking at the equipment gave Shera rope burn. If she wasn't going crazy, she knew for a fact that the Captain wouldn't like _any_ of their methods.

She scanned the grass to find that they had collected several jumbo sized, wooden stakes. "What are…you planning to do…with all of this?" Shera guzzled hot coffee between words. She thickly swallowed and played a brief session of mental Ping-Pong, trying to figure out whether or not it was the best time to voice her deep concerns.

The problem was: explaining it in a way that didn't appear ludicrous. To be frank, she only had fragments of information, and the information she had was difficult for just herself to understand. It dawned on her mid-sip that Cid probably consumed numerous pets, and Shera drank heavier until there wasn't any left to drink. Maybe she should have popped open a bottle of whiskey instead.

"We're going to rig up a rope snare while we still have daylight! Pretty sure this last monster is nocturnal." Tifa was leaning her weight on the handle end of a large rubber mallet. She puffed out her rosy cheeks and handed another working mallet to Cloud. "Do you know the area well, Shera?"

"I…I suppose I do, if you mean the woods." Shera pulled the edge of her bottom lip between her teeth and briefly looked out over the horizon. The thought of night approaching formed chunks of icy anxiety in her stomach. Say something. Say something. Say something. "Um…"

"Ya! We're gonna need to set this rope up on the strongest tree ya got. We'll hog tie this son of a bitch, and then everyone can finally go on 'bout their business."

"There's something I should probably—"

"Right? I didn't think it would be this much trouble. Lesson learned, I guess." Cloud rubbed an irritating bug bite on the back of his neck and motioned that he was ready to follow Shera whenever she was ready.

"This is a good idea and all, but I think we might be underestimating our target's intelligence." Shera fully had the floor, er grass, and spoke a little louder.

Barret, Cloud, and Tifa were collectively confused.

"I mean," she sucked in a deep breath and tried to sort out how she wanted to explain "maybe I shouldn't put it that way." Shera began to walk and the party curiously followed after her to the tree line.

"You think it will recognize when it's being lured into a trap?" Cloud was scratching the back of his neck again.

"Maybe. I don't think we should set up the trap in a way that would hurt him." She nibbled on her knuckle and anticipated carefully scuffling past a swag of thorns.

"…hurt _him_?" Tifa stopped walking all together and the party fell silent again. "Shera, what's wrong?"

"You're probably going to think I'm crazy, but I don't think this monster is really a monster. "

III.

She took a moment to wipe sweat from her forehead before dipping down near the back porch steps. Shera pulled up a loose wooden board and dragged out the remains of Cid's flight jacket. She had kept it there just in case. Not wanting to get any granules of old, dried blood on her clothes, she tossed it down to the grass and toed open the majority of the fabric with the tip of her boot.

"I found it down near the creek. I noticed some of his clothes had been going missing maybe a week or two ago." Shera tilted to the evidence with the lazy sway of her head and sank down on the step she had pulled it out from. She rubbed her sore palms. They'd been rope burned (of _course_ they were) helping the others set up the trap near the back of the woods were the oldest trees were rooted.

The group had ruffled back to the house to solidify a plan, and rest now that the air was cool. The sun had gone down hours ago leaving the porch bulb and the waning, full moon above to provide the party light.

"That would explain what was up with him this morning." Cloud's expression was tense. This certainly complicated things. He was grateful they didn't succeed in killing their target last night.

"And why we couldn't find Cid last night." Tifa adjusted her gloves and plopped down next to Shera on the porch. She removed the band keeping the ends of her hair together and shook bush burrs out of the strands.

"It was a difficult conclusion to come to. In the beginning, both of us were kind of suspecting Nanaki was our culprit."

"Suspecting me of what?" Red slunk from behind the cracked back door. Argument on the inside of the house disrupted the cricket lull of outside and ceased when the door fell closed behind him. The canyon beast took a moment to stretch out his back, tail end high behind him and stomach low, before padding down the steps to examine what Shera had tossed down for the group to see.

"Of being the Rocket Town's mystery monster." Shera nudged her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and gave Red an apologetic, lopsided frown. "You showed up right after something happened the night before, and you were acting so odd. I don't think you ever told us why you were really here in the first place."

"I didn't want to suffer embarrassment." Nanaki spoke honestly. His nose hovered and twitched above the fabric. He recognized that whatever it was, it belonged to Cid, and immediately felt he had missed something important in the conversation. "I had a chronic stomach ache and was looking for grass as a side objective. As you can imagine, it's the last thing you'll find where I live. Barret was originally going to come to request the Captain, but when he asked if I wanted to, I jumped up at the opportunity."

"Try not to scare the hell out of us next time. If ya sick, just say so, Red!" Barret leaned on his unburned side and seated himself on the top of an old wooden barrel.

"I'll try to monitor my pride." Nanaki bitterly remarked. "I can see how you would assume that the last creature was me. There are some very _questionable _similarities."

"That isn't your fur on Cid's jacket, is it?" Shera asked him. She was picking out whatever burrs had attached themselves to the fabric of her sweater while they had been working.

"Absolutely not. I don't shed." He shook his head and narrowed a keen eye. "Am I missing something?"

"Sure are. We've set up a trap that should snag our target by the legs." Cloud didn't want to have to be the one to completely explain.

"I thought the main goal was to kill it? Wouldn't a different trap be more efficient?" If anyone knew an effective trap from experience, it was Nanaki.

"We don't want to kill it…him now." Tifa stood up and poked her head inside the door. Cid and Yuffie's bickering on the inside of the house grew louder, and it was only a matter of time before Cait Sith would feel the need to interrupt and amplify all the blare they were making.

"And why not?" Red tilted his head and his expression strained with misunderstanding.

"I can't tell you how it might have happened," though Shera was already formulating a notion "but Cid is our target. He's never around when the monster is, it's been months and his injuries still haven't healed, his clothes have been going missing, I'm finding hair—that isn't yours—all over the house, and I think he's been sleep walking." Shera stood up after Tifa did. The joints of her knees popped and she leaned back to work out the stiffness that had grown in her back. "He has a wound in the same place I threw the spear, too. "

Nanaki gradually relaxed into concerned thought. "I…see. I'm starting to rethink the complications we had on the ship as well. He doesn't know?"

"I don't think so. None of us have really known until now." Shera retrieved the tattered jacket from the grass and stuck it back under the loose porch step. "I…I don't really know what to do."

"Cid's undergoing some sort of transformation, at some sort of time, correct?" Red asked.

"And ya mentioned somethin' about sleepwalking, right? Maybe it's got something to do with that, too?" Barret interjected.

Shera nodded her head in agreement. "All of that sounds reasonable."

"Then it means to some extent, Cid's been tampered with. The monster…he's" Cloud corrected himself "infused with Mako at night. I can tell by his eyes. The other monsters we had to deal with were like that."

"You think Hojo got to Cid?!" Barret ducked his head when Cait Sith's mega phone was chucked out the door and sent sailing over the porch.

"I was starting to think that myself. " Shera rasped. Cid's voice was growing nearer to the door.

"We're still going to go through with the trap for the sake of any more victims. We'll all try not to harm him. I'll pull Yuffie aside tonight and tell her. Who's going to try and break it to Cid?" Tifa whispered back and darted away from the door before it could swing opened completely and smack her in the face.

"If any more of my rocks go missing, I'll wring your thieving little neck! I ain't got any materia! Stop snooping my goddamn house!" The Captain limped out onto the porch; still yelling at Yuffie up and taunting him on the inside. He held Cait Sith by his cape in a clenched fist. "What are y'all doin' out here?! You see his dumb megaphone?"

All eyes had been on Shera before Cid lumbered outside. "We were—we were just going over the plan for tonight. That's all. We have a few hours before it gets late to eat and prepare ourselves." She awkwardly smiled; trying to hide the dread she felt. Of course she'd have to be the one to make the Captain aware of himself.

IV.

A random assortment of left overs were thrown together as a last minute meal. Cid and Yuffie's argument would have continued over the dining table, but the other side of the boxing ring claimed they had developed a horrible headache and were excused from having to go another problematic round. "Probably got sticky fingers in her sleep. She ain't supposed to be moving with her leg wounds anyway." The Captain wisecracked with a full mouth.

"You aren't supposed to be moving, or eating, either." Having already gotten all the sleeping he needed, Nanaki ate Yuffie's food for her with one of his tablets hidden somewhere at the bottom. A majority of the conversation they had about the trap was continued, so that Cid would have a general idea of what they were going to do. Everyone collectively dodged filling him in on exact information. No one knew how Cid knowing would affect the outcome of their plan.

"My house, I'll do what I want." Cid hobbled up, with empty plate in hand, and teetered to where Shera was in front of the sink. He stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder, and another sliding his plate into hot dish water. "You alright?" He mumbled near her ear. Cid could tell she was jittery.

"I've had two cups of coffee, in the largest mug in the house." That was partially the truth. She paused her washing when the Captain didn't walk off right away. He lingered there; chin lowered and hooked over her other shoulder. From the way he smelled, and his change of clothes, Cid had taken a decent shower after the doctor came to visit.

"I was wonderin' who turned on the maker. You not gonna burn out are ya? I can't wait for this to be over so we can all sit our asses down somewhere." His hand moved from her shoulder to her hip. Cid leaned around her side a bit to find her expression was taut.

Shera turned her head a bit to meet Cid's eyes. She pressed her lips into a tight line because the blue windows were asking her what was _really _wrong. Nothing, just going over in her head how she was going to break it to her housemate that he had probably consumed a cat, two sheep, a goat, and two chocobos as a result of someone's sick experiment.

"I'm very tired, Captain. It's been a bizarre few weeks."

"You gonna hang in there?" His voice tickled her inner ear.

"Hanging in as best I can." Shera ignored the tingle that oozed down her spine and cleared her throat. "There's something I need to show you before we regroup tonight. Is that okay?" She resumed washing. Her cheek brushed the scratchy line of Cid's jaw in rhythm with scrubbing. Shera was a little surprised he was being so openly affectionate in front of his friends. She was all bent up over him (rightfully), and he was bent up over her (obliviously).

"Yeah? " What was there to show?

V.

Cid opened his mouth by just a fraction, but no words came. The back porch light off to the side of where he and Shera stood distorted his already hard to decipher facial expression. Maybe it was disbelief? Maybe it was anger? Maybe it was confusion? Shera had been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for Cid to say something, and she knew him to almost never be a man lost for words.

"You think it's me?" He glared down the ripped remains of his flight jacket like it was the vilest thing he'd ever seen. "_Me_?"

Shera timidly nodded her head and tip toed about the subject. "I know you didn't mean any of what's happened. I think someone might have done something to you, and you haven't been aware of it."

"What the hell are you talking about, it ain't me." Sure, he'd kick another man right in his shin, or bare his teeth in a brawl, but Cid knew for a fact that he didn't have the blood of a killer. This had to be some huge misunderstanding. As far as he knew, he hadn't done anything wrong and nothing about him was out of the ordinary.

"Captain, please, just hear me out." She tried to reason with him. "You haven't been healing, you've ben running a fever, you sleepwalk, there's hair all over—"

"I told you it was Red's!"

"It's not Red's. He can tell you himself."

"Shera it_ ain't_ me." Cid refused to believe it. Yuffie got on his nerves but he'd _never_ try to hurt her.

"Please, Cid, just listen to me. I'm not saying this to waste anyone's time. I'm telling you what I've seen. It_ is_ you, and if you'd just listen maybe we can do something about it." Shera's jaw was rigid. She chewed on the inside of her cheek and tried to keep her thoughts clear. She was so tired, and so nervous, and she was just _trying _to help.

"_IT AIN'T ME, SHERA!_" Ah, and they were doing so well.

"_Cidney Highwind._"

Taken by surprise, Cid withdrew. He didn't know she could bark. It was low, and dangerous, and it told him her two thousand mile patience was now only a little over two feet. "I have listened to _you _for seven years. I am begging you to listen to _me_." She took a hold of both of his wrists. The heat of his skin burned through the pads of her fingers.

It was silent for several moments; the dispute was continued between tensely locked eyes. Nothing came from the inside of the house either. Night ambiance filled the sluggish untangling of air between them.

Shera slowly exhaled through her nose. Her thumbs swept over the protrusion of bone that connected Cid's palms to his forearm. "Tell me what it looks like?"

"Tell you what it looks like?" He didn't know what she meant by the question.

"Can you tell me—the monster—what does it look like?" Shera's brows were bowed.

The Captain's eyes darted off to the side. Cid thought he could answer for an instant, but then he remembered. His shoulders grew heavy and his heart beat was shallow in his chest. A cold, guilty sweat beaded on his forehead.

"You can't tell me, can you…?"

No, he couldn't.


	9. Chapter 9

**Geeze, I meant to have another chapter out way before now, but you know, life. I'm still planning to finish by the 31****st****, though! Let's see where all of this goes. **

* * *

><p>I.<p>

The bright flicker of cerulean light lit the darkened bags under his eyes. The pale light's source, liquefied and decondensed energy, had splashed at some point, and very slowly burned a hole through one of the sleeves of his lab coat. He wasn't fazed by the spill. It had happened plenty of times before while synthesizing other trial serums. At the moment, his attention was held on something much more important.

If he didn't watch the reaction before him, the ingredients of his concoction wouldn't bind correctly. He only had so much to his disposal in the storage unit of the mansion. Adjusting the glare out of his glasses, he removed one test vial from a partially finished batch and readied to re-record what he had previously written on the label.

**RED XIII_ Extraction 23-36-2 (SEGMENT 150)**

**ELITE SERVICE CANINE 182/ 1****st**** CLASS SHINRA K9 #182_ Extraction 39-78-2 (SEGMENT 70)**

**PROTEIN X**

**BINDING AGENT 760**

**SALINE 3%**

**MAKOBIOORGANIC 75% Decondensed**

**Additional Notes:**

**Uncontrollable Variants Not Found in Mixture: prolactin, acetylcholine, serotonin**

**Blood and tissue life unknown. Desired activation at the standard start of REM. Best results requires a prepared subject. Miniature trials 1-6 suggest that cellular activation consumes copious amounts of adenosine triphosphate, and preexisting cell resources including water and raw sugar. If subject is injected, prepared or unprepared, then the researcher can expect dehydration and starvation in consecutive transformations. No other notes on affects can be taken at this time.**

He placed his pen back under the metal lining of his clip board, and twisted a stopper onto the top of the vial in his hand. He removed his gloves, and slipped it into the slot of a centrifuge. The machinery's lid was promptly snapped shut.

II.

Cid ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed the strain from his face. He sat, hunched over, on the bottom step of the porch. He combed, groped, rummaged through, and just about threw over every stone cluttering the space of his memories. Why couldn't he remember?! If someone had screwed him over, shouldn't he know?!

Neither of them said anything for a long while. An hour had pasted to allow everything to sink in. And sink it did. Cid had the most awful feeling in the very pit of his stomach. At some point, Shera had padded back into the house, and brought them something cold to drink. Understandably, no one had bothered her when she did. The silence was broken when she sat again.

"What the hell do I do?" The Captain mumbled. He lowered a hand from his head and stared down at the stray hair he unintentionally pulled. He held up a few choppy strands between his fingers to a square of porch light cast over his thigh. Red at the roots.

"I don't know either…" Shera sighed. "We're all just waiting."

"For me." Cid's side glance was an unsure one. It was true. There was nothing else to wait for.

"We can figure this out." She drummed her finger nails along the ceramic outside of the mug she drank from. Shera could still taste the coffee that was in it earlier.

"I could become this thing at any second." Cid sighed low through his nostrils. He'd had enough of sitting. Handing his empty cup to Shera, he stood with a grunt and dusted off his hands. She leapt up a short moment after him. Shera hoped he wasn't planning anything.

"Barret and I think it has something to do with you sleeping. " She hooked her finger in the handle of one cup, and drank the rest of the water in the other. "It's…you've always appeared late at night."

"Don't I take naps during the day?" He paced. Cid was rubbing the scratchiness of his chin. It was strange to see him so fidgety and nervous.

He had her there. Cid did in fact take naps during the day. "They aren't long ones, Captain." Never more than twenty minutes at a time. That probably had something to do with him being a pilot. "Sleepwalking always comes with deep sleep. Did you…" Shera's question trailed.

"Did I what?" Cid paused his creaky pacing over the porch wood and faced her.

"Did you fall asleep last night? Out in the field?" She remembered him telling her how tired he was.

"S_hit_." He hissed at no one in particular. "I was leanin' against my spear after you left. I …I guess I clocked out." That's all he could remember. "I'm not sleepin', then." Cid decided then and there. He snatched the handle to the porch door and limped back inside.

"Not sleeping? Captain, you have to sleep eventually." Shera tried placing her hand on his arm, but he was moving too much.

"What the hell else am I supposed to do, huh?!" The conversation on the inside was partially interrupted. Cloud, Barret, and Tifa's backs stiffened, and they all avoided eye contact. Cid could tell they had probably been listening to the argument he and Shera had had an hour or so ago.

"Nothing happens when you take a nap!" Shera gave a frustrated huff and flung out her arms a bit with the suggestion. She tossed their cups in the sink and placed her hands on her hips. She wasn't really upset with him, not knowing what to do in any given situation made her just as on edge. She hated not knowing what to do, and the whole ordeal wasn't something any of them were taking lightly.

"We can take turns watching," Nanaki's throaty yawn cut through both of their voices "that is, if the Captain doesn't mind."

"Look," Cloud was trying to gauge how bad a mood Cid was in "no one likes to be baby sat, but you've got sitters. We don't mind watching if you take short naps. I mean, if we make it through the night without seeing…our target, then we'll have some sort of solid evidence. If not—"

"We'll try not to let the 'if not' get out of hand. We already have a backup plan." Tifa partially smiled. Her brows were still bowed in deep concern.

Cid rubbed the back of his neck. It hadn't been long at all, and he felt like his world was turned upside down. This was ridiculous. "Fuck! _Fine._" What else was there?

III.

Shera wiped drool from the side of her cheek with her sleeve. Tifa had gently tapped on her shoulder; stirring her from the light sleep she had been in. "Time to switch already?" She mumbled and pinched the fog from her eyes. Aside from a lamp, and the licking flames of Nanaki's tail, the house was dark and quiet if you didn't count the snoring.

"Yes, sorry." Tifa covered her yawn with her hand and waited for Shera to stand up from the couch so they could trade places.

"It's alright." Shera stretched out her legs and fixed her glasses over the bridge of her nose. She looked over Yuffie's hip to see that she was still asleep. Finding her footing on the hardwood, she held in a sneeze, and moved around the patchy armrest to unplug Caith Sith's charging cord. The flickering green light in his plush back dimmed, and Shera rolled the long lead up on the coffee table. "She hasn't been feeling any better, has she?" She whispered to Tifa, and the younger woman shook her head.

"Yuffie might have been paying half attention when I told her everything. She was totally upset about being stuck here, but I could tell she still had a really bad headache. I used the thermometer in your kit just in case. I really hoped she wasn't, but she started running a fever."Tifa sank down in the impression Shera had left behind on the couch, and found a comfortable position sharing the blanket Yuffie had been under.

"That's not good…maybe we should call the doctor again and make sure she doesn't have an infection. If she wakes up anytime soon, you can hand her some ibuprofen." Shera tugged the yellow scrunchie from her hair by a loosened loop and sluggishly retied her ponytail. "Is the Captain awake?" She could see that the door to the engineering room was open; light from the inside illuminated the wooden posts of the stairs.

"I woke him up before I woke you. He's got a little while before he can take another cat nap. So far, we haven't heard anything. I really think it has been him." The last of Tifa's statement was muffled in another yawn.

"Well, you can go to sleep." Shera keenly checked the time. It was two quarters past three in the morning. "I'll keep him company for the rest of the night."

"Warning you, though. He's a little grumpy."

"When isn't he? Did you forget I'm the he's-a-little-grumpy expert?" Shera dryly laughed and waved Tifa goodnight. Stretching her arms, and rubbing the stiffness in her shoulder, she slipped through the crack in the door to the work room. "Captain?"

"Hmn?" Cid's head bobbed upward. He had his elbows anchored into a sawdust covered table top, and his chin in one of his hands. He looked all kinds of worn out. Empathy filled her heart at the sight of him, and Shera pulled up the chair Tifa had posted herself in before her.

"Are you okay?" Shera tilted one way to try to view the rest of his face. Cid's expression was too riddled with fatigue to properly read. If he was upset, and he had a right to be, at least it wasn't something that she wasn't used to.

"M'alright." He mumbled. Cid gathered playing cards that were lined up on the table and stacked them together in a corner near a rusted table lamp. "Got any pills on ya?"

"Not on me. Do you need some?" She was ready to get them for him before she even had a chance to sit.

"Leg hurts, but forget it. Y'look pretty damn tired."

"_You _look pretty damn tired." Shera plopped down and folded her arms over the table top at his side. Not caring that sawdust was clinging to the fabric of her yellow sweater and the strands of her frizzed hair; she laid her head down over her forearms and made drowsy eye contact.

"Cause I am. Yer' turn to babysit me?"

"Mm hm, I have to keep you awake until you can sleep again. Did you and Tifa play cards?" Shera was gazing at the odd stippling of bright blue in Cid's irises. The pigment was much brighter than the blue she knew was naturally his. She hadn't seen it there earlier, but Shera suddenly remembered seeing it the night she had caught him sleep walking. So, she hadn't imagined it.

"Shera?"

"Hm?"

"Asked you what you were gonna do. You copy in there?" Here we go again. "Don't get ditzy on me. How are you s'posed to keep me awake if you're fallin' asleep?"

"Oh, I don't know. I figured you weren't interested in playing a game since you put the cards away." She realized she probably looked odd mindlessly gazing in Cid's eyes and averted her attention to his arms. They were tugging her away from her rattling seat and into his lap. Shera slipped her hands under the hold Cid had her torso in, and made room for the chin he hooked over her shoulder. He must have gotten tired of leaning against the hard, wooden table. He propped his weight against her, his chest to her back, instead.

"Hey, uh," Cid's voice was in Shera's ear again; filling her throat "m' sorry 'bout…I mean I shouldn't have yelled at ya. I was bein' an ass." Again. As usual. "You were just tryin' to tell me what's goin' on."

"You don't have to apologize. I'm not sure how I would react if I was in the same situation. I might not have wanted to believe it either." Shera pressed her mouth in a timid line. She could feel Cid's breath ghosting over the near corner of her lips in cadence with the gentle push against her back.

"Feels like I haven't been ownin' up. Man's gotta keep his word. You'd tell me if I ever hurt you, right, Shera?"

"Of course I would, Captain." She laid her head against his and Cid's short hair tickled the shell of her ear. "I think you can go back to sleep now. I'll wake you up a quarter till four."

She didn't have to tell him twice.

IV.

It was pleasant at first; a masculine purr filling her inner ear, and a heavy handed grip on her hips. The breathing over her shoulder was hot, and viscous, and labored. Ambiguous vibrations trickled from the base of her neck and snapped down her spine, causing her to shiver. Something snapped here, something snapped there. It was all pleasant until it wasn't. No snapping of the nerves. Those were sounds? The smell of dirt invaded her nostrils and she began to feel bush burs dragged across exposed portions of her skin.

So much pain and subtle dampness in the side of her ribs. Shera wrenched herself into full consciousness. It was dark, and if it wasn't, she still wouldn't be able to see. Her glasses were missing in action on her face. She wasn't moving her body either. It was being dragged by whatever had a hold of her pants leg. She screamed, or it would have been a scream if she didn't have a two pound block of horror wedged in her windpipe.

Nanaki's body dropped low to the ground. He spat out the fabric of her clothing, and whipped around to shush her before she could utter another sound.

"Red?!" Her voice came out in a rasp. Shera's heart was racing.

"Shush!" The canyon beast hissed and crouched lower. His belly brushed the damp soil below, and his body merged with the thicket he had hidden them behind. He stood perfectly still. In the dark, Nanaki could read the petrified look on her face.

_WHAT HAPPENED?!_

"_You're being hunted!"_

V.

The lethargy was creeping in. He had the sweet taste of blood on his canines, but the opportunity to feed his humanity, and keep it alive when the cycle ended was slipped away right under his wet nose; dragged off to some other portion of the woods where he would have to track it down. High off the scent, ignoring the voices, and the irrelevant musks of sweat, and the uninteresting thumps of heart beats that were chasing him. The blood, and pheromones were getting stronger just as the trees were getting thicker. Would he ignore the instinct to turn back around, or press on?

Fuck it. He leapt clear over a rope and pole he didn't even see and sure enough THERE WAS WHAT HE WAS LOOK FOR.

Something much smaller than him snarled and bared its teeth; body crouched over and viciously guarding who he'd almost made a meal out of before the moon had begun to set. He howled back, much louder with taking on the thief's challenge, but his roar was rivaled by the firing of a triple barreled gun.


	10. Chapter 10

**Baby, I'm preyin' on you tonight, hunt you down eat you alive**

**Oh well, so much for personal deadlines. I'm short of Halloween by about four hours. We'll pretend I posted four hours earlier. I have at least one or two more chapters before I can call this finished….I think. Don't trust me. **

* * *

><p>I.<p>

"What are you doing here?!" Even Nanaki was stunned by the unexpected appearance. Not having too much time to react, he snagged Shera by her clothes again before Cid could lunge. In his beast-like state, he was trying to dodge and snap his way around the smoking mouths of Vincent's gun. The arrival of another obstacle _infuriated_ him. Cid's muzzle crinkled over his gums in a sneer. A heavy paw was swung back, and in a blur of russet fur, sent in a razor sharp collision with the new found source of his anger.

"I can explain later. Now would be a good time to run." The faint slice of his stray hair filled his ears along with the thump of Nanaki's paw pads. He looked away from his opponent for just a second to confirm that he had been able to drag Shera off. Vincent narrowly avoided being torn over his chest. Very swiftly, he gained his focus and parried around another attack; finding it curious that Cid could keep up with him.

Vincent narrowed his eyes and extended his arm to fire a round between the heights of Cid's ears. With every advance his transformed friend made; he tried to discourage him from moving any further. "I hope you know there are easier things to eat." The gunman raised his arms to brace the hard whip and thrash of an ignited tail. Cid's scorching pilot light burned the shoulder of Vincent's cloak and overheated the metal of his gauntlet. He hissed in pain, and in that split second of wavering, Cid rushed around him and darted off in the direction Nanaki ran.

Vincent cursed and broke into a full sprint after him. He didn't want to have to hurt Cid.

II.

"Quickly, can you stand?!" Nanaki licked his jaws and panted. He had tugged Shera as far back as he could. Just for the moment, it was safe enough to stop.

"I-I think?" Shera held her side and cringed while trying to push herself to her feet. The pain in her ribs began to burn and a fresh wave of liquid heat oozed into her sweater. When she pulled her hand away, it was coated in blood. "He bit me…?" Shera tried to focus her eyes in the dark, but she was too dizzy.

"He did. Are you feeling alright? We can't sit still for long. We have to round back to the trap. I don't know how long Vincent will be able to distract him." He didn't want to imply that Shera was bait, but…Nanaki didn't have the heart to tell her that they had originally found her clamped and hung like a doll in Cid's teeth. Cloud was able to wedge his sword in his jaws just in time to keep him from crushing her.

"There's a lot of blood. I…I don't know." She was sick to her stomach, but Shera wobbled close. Nose and tail twitching; she could see Nanaki straining his senses to detect any on coming threats. The fur on his back grew ridged at the sound of Vincent's gun. It wasn't met with Cid's roar and it bothered him.

"We need to move!" He was already trotting out ahead. Shera gritted her teeth.

III.

Cid was too adrenaline driven and hungry to register the pain he should have felt in the thick muscle of his back. He'd been shot in non-lethal areas in an attempt to deter him. He snorted an uninteresting scent from nostrils and lapped the blood that leaked from a fresh cut on the roof of his mouth. Evenly spread and well-padded paws didn't make sound over dry pine needles. His hunting tactic had switched drastically and he became a shadow as he followed a continuing trail of Shera's blood.

He could catch Vincent combing the trees behind for any sight of him, and the voices that joined his search soon after. Halfway past the other bend of the creek, his body lowered into a predatory position and the tip of his unnaturally long tail dimmed. _There_ she was; staggering behind.

Quiet. Nothing but cricket lull.

All he needed to do was get a little closer.

IV.

Red's high pitched yelp was what startled Shera first. The mass that towered over her registered second. She leapt out of her skin and screamed. Her quadrupled vision teetered from the paw that forced Nanaki into submission against the ground, to the iridescent eyes that bore into her own.

"RUN!" Red wheezed. Cid's weight had compressed the air out of his lungs and he was clawing the dirt for a way out.

Shera would have run without a second thought if she could properly form one. Ice had settled in the pit of her gut and froze the soles of her feet to the earth below her muddied socks. Her stomach wrenched with being snatched and hung from Cid's canines. She dug her fingers into where his teeth punctured the fabric of her sweater and kicked her feet; hoping the threads would rip from her weight. Though most of her sweater was pulled up from her stomach and bunched beneath her chin, her arms were hopelessly stuck in the sleeves. Shera could feel in the way that his body swung that Cid was getting ready to take off again. Considering things didn't look well at all, at least it was an unorthodox way to die.

Her eyes snapped shut. Without warning Cid was rammed into the trunk of a tree. A crisp crack at the second he made contact sent the evergreen timbering over. He howled out in pain and surprise. With his mouth open, Shera plummeted to the ground.

Some other beast sank its jagged teeth into Cid's shoulders. His claws wrapped around long winding horns that curled from its forehead, and Cid used them as handles for flinging the galian brute off. The area erupted in blood curdling snarls and roars. Branches trembled and the ground shook; showering pine needles over her head. She whimpered, swiped them from her cheeks, and crawled on her hands and feet to get as far out of the way as possible. The last thing she wanted was to be stepped on in the heat of a dogfight.

She groped the earth and unintentionally clamped onto a handful of Nanaki's fur. Shera was deeply relieved to find him alive. "What is that?!" She was struggling to find her way back onto her feet; tugging on the scruff of Red's neck. He had just as hard a time getting up.

"That's…Vincent. I'm very sure." Nanaki paused to steady his breathing. His ears swiveled behind him and picked up the travel of what sounded like the rest of AVALANCHE's arrival.

"I know, I know." Shera groaned and pressed her hands to her ribs again. She hooked a blood caked finger through a gaping hole in her sweater and tugged it down to her hips. "We have to move."

V.

With light provided by the slow rise of the sun, everyone could finally see Cid in entirety. Battered and swaying belly up under the tautness of the rope wrapped around his wrists and heels, he looked as if he'd completely given up. He brawled with Vincent until he didn't have the energy anymore. The clash went on for what felt like forever, and it was the most cringe worthy occurrence Shera had ever had the displeasure to witness. Eventually, Cid had been bashed back and pitched into the snare everyone had hoped would work the first time.

There came another point where no one was exactly sure of what to do. Cloud, firmly planted at Vincent's side on the grass, suggested that it was probably best that they cut Cid down. It wasn't as if he had the ability to be ruthless in his current state. Everyone could tell he was injured and drained.

"I was somewhat summoned." Vincent held the tense shoulder of his right arm and tossed off his shredded, red cloak. By summoned, he meant contacted, and this contact had, oh well, absolutely nothing to do with the surveillance of a silly toy cat. "I didn't intend to make it here this late. You'll have to forgive me."

"I think you came at just the right time." Despite aching all over, Shera gathered herself up from the circle of exhaustion and took a few cautious paces in Cid's direction. His head was hung limp, mouth parted with a lolling tongue, and eyes were partially closed. When she realized Cid was watching her, she stopped. They were an eerie blue, and distinctively canine, but without a doubt, they were Cid's eyes. The more Shera looked, the more she could discern his face. Even the taping he usually kept in place along the side of his forehead was still plastered to his fur, and the whiskers of his nose and chin were short, and stubby like his facial hair. Blond topped. Broad chested. _Thoroughly pissed._

Absolutely Cid.

"He's not built for what's been done to him." Vincent stated. "It's safe to cut him down. I have much to tell all of you, but first, we need to find him something substantial to eat."

"Are you sure?" Tifa had the very same apprehension.

"That's Cid?! That old ass almost ate me!" Yuffie (apparently feeling a little better this morning) scowled. Her legs loosely clung to Barret's back, and her arms were draped over his shoulders. Their youngest member was probably the most confused about the sight before them.

"Sustaining transformations consumes more energy than any normal human is able to take in. I doubt the Captain has been hunting without good reason. Perhaps, it's grim of me to say, but I'm surprised he's survived this long." Vincent eyed the large puddle of dried blood in the side of Shera's ripped sweater. She had the worst injury of the night and considered adding tending to it to the growing list of objectives.

"I'm alright." Shera had caught were his attention was and waved it off. She didn't consider herself important for the time being. "You know what's happened to Cid, Vincent?"

"I have the gist of what might have happened. I was contacted a week or so ago, and asked to do some digging." It was probably hearing that it had much to do with his friend that stirred Vincent to take up the request. "Only Cid could tell us when, but at some point he was injected with an experimental alteration. We can discuss the details after we clean up here."

"He's not…hurt too badly? Is he?" Shera had thrown a spear and it required stitches when Cid woke. She could only imagine what would have trouble healing now.

"I didn't aim anywhere that I knew would seriously harm him. I can't really tell you what I might have done when I wasn't fully aware of myself."

"Nough' chit-chat for now, we don't want the Cap to K.O.! Let's untie em' and get to work. Ya boss lady is going to storm down here any second, right ?" Barret hitched Yuffie up higher on his back. There were groans etched into Cloud and Tifa's faces. Riiiiight, _her_.

"Come on, up up up lazy bones!" Caith waved from where he was clutched under Tifa's forearm.

"Lazy bones? You didn't even do anything!" Yuffie puffed out her cheeks.

"Little ninja, I recall you didn't do anything either!"

VI.

It probably wasn't the best idea for her to be around him alone. The way that Cid watched her made her a little uneasy. Actually, there were a lot of reasons why he made her uneasy (that were somewhat obvious). It went against Cid's character for him to be so _quiet._ She hoped it was the sort of silence that stemmed from being exhausted and not from being calculatory.

Trying not to pull at her fresh bandages, she brushed water from her hands and onto the surface of one of Cid's old t-shirts. It was all she had to put on after tossing her ruined yellow sweater in the wash. Maybe it was also bad that she was moving, but half of the group was off to the butcher, and the other half was in an informative, cellphone conference call with Reeve not too far off on the back porch. She just couldn't sit around and leave the Captain there alone. At some point in the early morning, she had noticed him having difficulty swallowing, and the first thought she had was to bring Cid some water. If he couldn't eat just yet, at least he could drink. She added full bag of sugar for good measure.

Shera was thankful that the group had chosen to move him closer to the house. Dragging a barrel (the only thing big enough to hold all the water she assumed he needed) across the yard to the field before the launch pad was a literal and figurative pain.

"Cid?" Shera stopped to catch her breath and ease the throbbing in her ribs a yard or so in front of him. He didn't fully lift his head, but she was surprised to see some sort of acknowledgement to hearing his name. Talking to him felt odd, too. She wasn't sure if he could understand. "Do you want water?" Shera cupped some in her hand and flicked it in his direction. He winced; making a grumble equal to cursing under his breath.

Cid stood on weary legs and approached. Shera nervously stepped aside while he stuck his head in the barrel and heavily drank. The way he was, Cid was hefty and intimidating. She pushed her glasses back up the bruised bridge of her nose and minded her distance. A deep sigh escaped her. Dried blood had clumped the strawberry rippling in his fur and matted the stream line of his mane.

A curious hand hovered the top his head without her knowing. Shera's fingers cautiously pulled a clump of sticky pine needles from between Cid's ears. Though filthy, his fur was incredibly soft and warm to the touch. She got bolder with her light pat and smoothed her palm back and forth across his head. Displaced sugar water, that didn't quite make it onto his lapping tongue, splashed from out of the barrel and onto her arms. Cid hadn't stopped drinking since he started. The water was gone immediately.

"I'm so sorry. You didn't mean to do any of—" Shera stiffened when Cid abruptly raised his head and absentmindedly snorted remnants of water_ all_ over her face. Her expression scrunched in brief disgust. At least the water perked him up in time for the other half of AVALANCHE to make it back to the house. The conference call on the porch must have ended, too. The group was watching from a safe distance And oh god…they brought back more than a couple pounds of raw meat. Ross was with them.

VII.

If only the butcher hadn't asked so many curious questions. Barret and Cloud would have made it back before having nothing to do with all of the food they'd just purchased.

Sun stung behind Cid's eye lids. The pounding in his head made it hard to resurface his consciousness. It was simply amazing. He had entered a whole new level, no dimension, of bull shit; transcended to an elevated platform of pain and exhaustion. He ached so _badly,_ that he shook. And he was so_ exhausted_, that he barely had the energy to lift his eyelids and focus his buffering senses.

The world was turned sideways. A blurry outline of Tifa with her hands slapped over her own and Yuffie's eyes. Cloud, Barret, and Ross? of all people standing with heads turned away and eyes adverted. What the fuck was going on? Why did he feel like a ripped, soggy sand bag?

"W-wait! Wait!" Shera's voice had to be the softest among all the people present, but it made his head sting. Cid was struggling to sit up and she placed her hands on his chest to stop him because he was stark naked.

"Vince?" Wow, he even sounded like a sand bag. Cid could smell Vincent better than he could see him. It was the scent that came from the cloak the older man was offering.

"Vincent, he's pale." His partner's voice was scared and stressed.

"Shera…" Speaking was a struggle. Suddenly, it was growing harder to breathe. Cid couldn't keep his eyes open.

"Cid?!" Brown hair was splayed over his chest. Shera pressed her ear to a shallow heartbeat, and Vincent knelt down to press his finger into the dip of Cid's neck.

VIII.

Cid lurched from sleep. His heart was pounding because he felt like he had fallen ten thousand feet from some crazy dream. His brows were knitted tensely, and his vision cracked open to a white room. If this was Hell, he was immensely underwhelmed.

"Do you always wake up looking that angry?" Vincent unpropped himself from the side of an open curtained window. Quite a bit of racket was seeping into the room from outside a door. The Captain's eyes strained. His head was stale and stuffy like it had been filled with industrial wire and cotton. When he moved his arm, Cid could sense the sharp tug of an IV.

"Wher's," Cid's tongue was heavy and he slurred "whers'shera…?"

Vincent pointed. She was curled up in a corner beside him on the bed; shirt twisted and riding high. She slept on the side that didn't hold her stitches, and the Captain was just conscious enough to mentally question her bandages. She was there with him, though. He didn't know which god he hand to thank. Hell, he'd thank all of them for good measure.

"Nice to see you're back to some properly functioning senses." Vincent was slightly amused by the total disregard of his original question.

"Nice… t'know I ain't dead."

"Well, you can probably thank your partner." Vincent untucked a thick manila packet from under the leather cover of his right arm.** RED XIII- REM HOUND PROJECT **was plastered to the front in printed labeling.


End file.
